In the other OUA semi-final, the seemingly unstoppable No. 2 Western Mustangs struggled mightily against the No. 9 Laurier Golden Hawks. Well into the third quarter, the two teams were only three points apart. Those (like me) who thought Laurier threw everything they had against Mac and would be nothing more than a speed bump for the Purple Ponies were very wrong. While they eventually pulled out a 32-18 win, Laurier was a bad turnover away from being in the Yates Cup. However, the win was costly for Western. Star QB Will Finch was carted off with an apparent head injury, which Coach Greg Marshal thought may be a broken jaw. Finch, who has a serious history of head injuries, will almost certainly not play this week. While backup QB Stevenson Bone is no slouch, he hasn’t seen much action this year and isn’t as dynamic as Finch. Western remains big, experienced, and deep at every position, and has home field advantage, but the Finch injury means Guelph’s odds just went up.
So, as was widely predicted before the season, it will be Guelph travelling to Western for the Yates Cup. This will be the third appearance in the last four years for Guelph, although they haven’t won a Yates since 1996. Western currently holds the most Yates Cup titles with 30; the Gryphons just three, although two of Guelph’s Yates Cups wins were against the Western Mustangs. The 108th Yates Cup will take place at TD Richardson Stadium at 1pm. The other three conference finals will be UBC at Calgary, Montreal at Laval, and StFX at Mount Allison. Should Guelph win the Yates Cup, they would play the Quebec champion in Guelph, but let’s take things one game at a time.