There is winning and winning. The Carabins won a historic 28-0 victory against the Rouge et Or on Saturday afternoon in front of a packed house at CEPSUM.
This is the very first time that Montreal has shut out Laval, in the long history of the rivalry between them. The Carabins had also never beaten the Rouge et Or by such a large difference of points. The previous mark was 21 points (2009, 2021).
“Whoa! “, exclaims linebacker Nicky Farinaccio when La Presse informs him of these records, after the meeting. A fine rain begins to fall on the CEPSUM field, after the October sun which shone on the enclosure intermittently during the confrontation.
Farinaccio was one of the architects of the domination of the Montreal walls in this match. He notably intercepted a pass from quarterback Arnaud Desjardins in the first quarter, a key play which tilted “all the momentum” towards Montreal, he believes.
Arnaud Desjardins suffered five sacks from the Carabins defensive line, which never allowed the Rouge et Or to even approach the goal line.
The local head coach, Marco Ieduca, was more sober in his post-match interview.
“I’m happy that we have home field advantage for the playoffs, and that we’ve come to seal first place [in the standings]. For the rest, a victory is a victory. »
“The guys wanted to have a good performance,” he added. We keep saying that in the last match [between the two teams], Laval had committed seven turnovers, as if we had nothing to do with it, by creating these turnovers defensively. »
Farinaccio’s interception “gave us wings at the start of the match,” confirms Ieduca. “We never looked back after that. »
On the other hand, head coach Glen Constantin was realistic. “Montreal played better than us,” he said simply. We have to face ourselves. We have to work, dust ourselves off, and we’ll meet again in a month. »
Jonathan Sénécal shone again during this match, as he has done since the start of his Quebec university career. It was he who opened the scoring, by running, with a touchdown in the first quarter.
This player “is a problem,” Constantin noted, with a smile.
In the second quarter, Sénécal then nicely backhanded the ball to his main target on Saturday, Hassane Dosso, for a second major at the start of the second quarter.
“I didn’t think he was going to throw it at me! Dosso explains enthusiastically, talking about his touch. I thought he was going to run, and then I see him, he looks at me, he throws the ball at me. Oh ! »
Sénécal obtained 252 yards passing, in addition to adding 61 yards rushing. Dosso caught 9 passes, for 67 yards.
The Montreal defense also went for four safety touchdowns, another symbol of its domination. The score was completed by two field goals.
“We try to play with as many dogs as possible,” notes Farinaccio. “We thought to ourselves all week: ‘Just do your job, that’s all, it’s going to be fine.’” »
Constantin nevertheless noted that several of his players on the defensive line “were on the floor”. “We came here with a broken team. »
“These are hyper-defensive matches, and we couldn’t answer the call today,” he said, while wanting to “give credit to Montreal.”
The Carabins, still undefeated, ensured that they finished the season at the top of the RSEQ standings. They will face Concordia for their last game of the season on October 28.