As the Western Mustangs football team walked off Alumni Field in Windsor on Saturday afternoon, it would have been hard for them to believe they ever trailed in the game.
The final score read 58-24 for Western but the game wasn’t as easy as those numbers might suggest.
The Mustangs opened the scoring on an 82-yard touchdown pass from Chris Merchant to Savaughn Magnaye-Jones inside the first four minutes, but Windsor’s offence ran right with them and tied the game on their own 82-yard throw from Sam Girard and catch by Matthew James.
That play seemed to ignite the Lancers and gave them some momentum against the No. 1 team in the USports rankings.
Windsor took a 14-10 lead and then led 17-14 more than halfway through the second quarter.
As the first half wound down, Western began to use more read-option plays using Merchant, who can show off the escapability of a housefly against a slow-handed attack. Merchant ran for 12 yards and then 13 yards and got his team down to the five-yard line of the Lancers with 11 seconds remaining. The Mustangs took their final timeout and worked out some strategy on the sideline that saw Merchant find Brett Ellerman in the end zone. The touchdown gave Western a 23-17 lead at the end of the half and they never looked back.
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Western scored three TDs in the third quarter to blow the game open and lead 44-17. Trey Humes ran the ball in from 12 yards out and Merchant connected with Ellerman for a second time and Malik Besseghieur for his fourth passing touchdown of the day.
Windsor put their final points on the board with just 2:25 remaining in the game before the Mustangs added two major scores in the final minute on a run by Jonathan Femi-Cole and an interception return by Alex Salytchev.
Western kicker Marc Liegghio was perfect on the day going 3-for-3 in field goals and 5-for-5 on extra points. He hit from 18, 23 and 42 yards out.
The Mustangs have now won 28 consecutive regular-season games dating back to Sept. 4, 2016.
The Mustangs will play a home game for the first time in three weeks on Oct. 5 at TD Stadium when they host the Waterloo Warriors at 1 p.m. The Warriors hammered York 57-19 to improve to 5-1 on the season. Waterloo leads the OUA in points scored but they rank among the worst in the league in points against.
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