AUS teams to get familar

Huskies, Mounties and X-Men, Axemen to meet in home-and-home football matchups
By Monty Mosher, The Chronicle Herald

It’s home-and-home time in AUS football.

The CIS No. 9 Saint Mary’s Huskies, 2-1, host the Mount Allison Mounties, 0-3, to begin the football weekend tonight at Huskies Stadium. They get together again next Saturday night in a special event planned for Moncton.

The sixth-ranked St. Francis Xavier X-Men, who can go 4-0 for the first time since Kevin Aver starred for the X-Men in 1979, will look to stretch their lead atop the conference standings in a Saturday afternoon game in Antigonish. St. F.X. travels to Acadia for the back end of the series next Friday night under the lights in Wolfville.

It will be the Huskies and X-Men entering with momentum.

The Huskies staged a last-minute drive at home to beat Sherbrooke 26-23 and St. F.X. ended a five-game losing streak in Quebec with a 19-17 win at Concordia.

Meanwhile the Axemen lost their second straight, 34-13 at Montreal. McGill throttled Mount A 49-27 at Sackville, N.B.

Mounties (0-3) at Huskies (2-1) — Spare a kind thought for Kelly Jeffrey’s Mounties, who face two straight with the two-time defending conference champs before their first-ever game against the Vanier Cup champion Laval Rouge et Or — at Quebec City.

The Huskies have won 18 straight over the Mounties since 1998.

The Mounties have been a defensive disaster for the most part, allowing an average of 591 yards per game and 45 points. They are minus-11 in turnover margin (14-3).

"Our big thing is we can’t make the mistakes we’ve been making," said Mount A receiver Gary Ross. "We’ve had way too many turnovers in all of our games and that’s just going to be amplified against a team the quality of Saint Mary’s."

"We’ve been crucified by the big play," said Jeffrey. "And in the first three games turnovers have been a big part of losing field position."

Steve Sumarah’s Huskies did just enough to win against Sherbrooke, trailing 16-0 in the first half, and the coaching staff had plenty to chew on when it looked at the game film.

The Huskies have a pair of significant injuries on the defensive line with two-time all-Canadian tackle Dan Schutte and end Austin MacLennan out for this week.

Sumarah isn’t one to look past the Mounties.

"I really believe teams get up to play us and if we’re not ready anything can happen," he said. "We weren’t ready to play against Sherbrooke and we got beaten up in the first half."

SMU kicker Justin Palardy enters the game four behind a share of the AUS record for field goals. Former X-Men kicker Jadran Mlinarevic has the record at 56.

Axemen (1-2) at X-Men (3-0) — Both teams have been good at throwing the football with St. F.X.’s Steve Snyder, coming off a 396-yard effort at Concordia, leading the conference with 1,043 yards and Acadia’s Keith Lockwood second at 847.

They are also the two best teams in the conference at taking away the football with the X-Men at plus eight and the Axemen at plus five.

The X-Men were supposed to rely on fifth-year tailback James Green for the bulk of their offence in 2009, but it hasn’t started out that way. Green has been limited to 111 yards on 33 carries and the X-Men have nearly five times more yards through the air than on the ground.

"If either team is able to win both of these games, they can kind of position themselves in a good spot moving forward," said X-Men head coach Gary Waterman. "These are critical games."

Despite the final score, Acadia head coach Jeff Cummins didn’t think his team played all that poorly in Montreal.

"We did some good things on both sides of the ball, we just didn’t put the ball in the end zone," he said. "We got down inside the 20-25 a handful of times and we’ve just got to score when we get our opportunities."

Cummins knows the next two weeks will likely determine Acadia’s hopes for a top-two finish and a home playoff date.

"If they go out and play well and win both they really separate themselves," he said. "We’re looking at it from the bottom up and we’ve got to go out and make some things happen. But they are a good football team. There’s a reason they are 3-0."