The Gryphons might be glad for a short week before facing the Queen’s Gaels following their disappointing 32-29 Labour Day setback to the Windsor Lancers.
“We’ve got to turn it around quick,” interim head coach Kevin MacNeill said moments after the final whistle at Windsor’s Alumni Field. “We’ve got a short week to get ready for Queen’s who is coming off a bye week so we have no time to really mull this one over. We’ve got to get ready for Queen’s.”
“You win some, you lose some. It’s just how we bounce back from that,” linebacker Lukas Korol said. “We’ll come back (this) week at practice and just get ready for our next game. We’ve got a short week so we’re not going to hold back.”
The Gryphons gained a lot of ground between the 20s, but failed to put up the points they expected against a team that had lost its season opener 78-6 to the Western Mustangs a week earlier.
“We had penalties,” MacNeill said. “We didn’t have any mental focus and we took a lot of selfish penalties and that’s ultimately my responsibility, make sure that we possess better mental focus in the game.”
“We just didn’t execute,” receiver/returner Ryan Nieuwesteeg said. “We had penalties out there that we can’t take. We scored a touchdown and we had a penalty on the play. It basically just boils down to penalties and mental focus. We weren’t mentally focused enough to win that game and they came out and they proved that they were a different team than they were a week ago and good for them. We’ve got to get back in our play books. We’ve got to get back in the film room. We just have to come out better.”
The score of Windsor’s opening-game loss might have made the Gryphons think they were in for an easy time with Windsor.
“I don’t want to say that, but you can’t underestimate teams,” Nieuwesteeg said. “This is what the league’s like. This is college football in Canada and you can’t take a team lightly. They just proved out there what happens when you do.”
“That’s not necessarily right, but at the same time when we see scores like that I think we all have that notion that, yes, this is going to be a lot easier than we had planned,” running back Daniel Palmer-Salmon said. “I guess they proved us a little wrong. We came out with our game plan, but maybe our execution was to blame for the most part.”
“We do have a confident group and I do think we’re the better team here, we just didn’t play like it today,” MacNeill said.
The Gryphons had 533 yards of total offence, 144 more than Windsor. But they also had 100 yards in penalties, 18 more than Windsor.
Included in the penalty total was one for holding on a play with 1:20 to go when Palmer-Salmon burst into the Windsor end zone on a 13-yard run that would have put the Gryphons ahead. They fumbled the ball away on the 15-yard line on the next play and that basically cemented the win for Windsor.
“We didn’t come out an execute. We had the yards, but we just couldn’t finish when we needed to,” Palmer-Salmon said. “This is just another game in the dust, basically. We’re looking forward to our next game against Queen’s. All we can do is get over this hump and get back to where we are. We’re the defending Yates Cup champions and went to the (Mitchell Bowl). By getting over bumps like this, that’s what’s going to make us champions.”
The loss leaves the Gryphons at 1-1 in the young season, the same record as Windsor. The Gryphons are to host the Queen’s Gaels, who lost their season opener 37-18 to the Laurier Golden Hawks Aug. 28.
“You know what, you’ll move on,” Korol said. “You just look at the next game. That’s in the past, but you learn from it. Some of the best teams learn from games like that. It’s just the way you respond to it and I feel we’ll come back firing next week like the Gryphons we are.”
Game time Saturday at Alumni Stadium is 1 p.m.

Written by Rob Massey