Mark Surya of the Guelph Gryphons had an early shower after the Gryphons opened their OUA football regular season with a victory Saturday at Alumni Stadium.
The Gryphons recovered from an early deficit to down the Carleton Ravens 38-25 to give Surya a victory in his first game as head coach of the team.
His players had to chase him down to give him an on-field shower of ice-cold water.
"You know what? I think it's a rite of passage,” Surya said of the shower. “Not a lot of people get to be head coaches in this country. There's only 27 places, so it's an honour to do that and just to experience something like that, that you only get to do as a head coach. It was a great experience."
For the Gryphons, it was the second consecutive season they’ve won their season opener. However, the locals finished out of the playoffs with a 3-5 record that included a season-ending 29-27 loss to Carleton at Ottawa.
"I'm happy,” Surya said. “The defence played awesome. Couple turnovers on the offence put us a bit behind, but to see them play together as a team, that was huge for me. To see the adversity, I mean I got flashbacks to last year, obviously, up two scores and all those things. But I think it's a new year for these guys and you can see a different team out there."
The Gryphons got off to a slow start as Carleton led 7-0 at the end of the first quarter.
"The first game of the year, you don't know what you're getting (from Carleton) on film so it's a feeling out process for both sides,” Surya said. “I think you saw our identity there in the second half. We can run the ball, a couple of timely passes, explosive plays for both sides. So it was a fun football game, but we were lucky to come out on top."
One thing of concern for the Gryphs was the number of times their athletic trainers had to run out on the field to look at players down on the field. Some will be out for at least the next game.
"First game of the year, it's hot and it's humid,” Surya said. “It's the hottest day it's been since we started training camp, but we'll take a look at the training room, see what happened. I think there's a few serious ones today that you can't really chalk up maybe to overuse or training or that kind of thing. It's part of the game and we'll have to adjust."
The Gryphons did adjust after the first quarter as they rallied to lead 23-16 at halftime and they extended the lead to 37-23 by the end of the third quarter.
The Gryphons received touchdowns from Marshall McCray on a three-yard run, Kaine Stevenson on a 25-yard pass from Tristan Aboud, Gianni Green on a 74-yard interception return, Caleb Sargeant on a five-yard run and Willem Arseneau on a 38-yard pass from McCray.
Guelph had 297 yards rushing, 216 yards passing and 207 yards on returns. By comparison, Carleton had 177 yards rushing, 255 yards passing and 79 yards on returns.
Individually for the Gryphons, Donavin Milloy had 137 yards rushing on 17 carries and McCray had 82 yards on 13 carries. Jakub Tomas caught four passes for 84 yards and Anakin Guthrie had 110 yards in the return game, 92 of them coming on a total of four kickoff returns.
While the win was the main thing for the Gryphons, they were pleased with the way the team banded together and kept things positive.
“We had a lot of times of adversity last year where I don't think we responded the best,” Surya said. “This year it seemed like there was a little nervousness, but to see the defence band together and offence, nobody was turning on ourselves, so that was the biggest thing."
Next two games for the Gryphons are to be off campus as they’re to play the Toronto Varsity Blues in Toronto Sept. 1 at 7 p.m. and the Laurier Golden Hawks at Waterloo Sept. 7 at 1 p.m.
Next home game is to be Sept. 14 when they’re to host the McMaster Marauders at 1 p.m.
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