It was a long time coming, but Guelph native Nick Guardiero, a punter with the Guelph Gryphons, made his OUA football debut in Saturday’s Homecoming Game at Alumni Stadium.
“Just coming out here with my brothers (teammates), it was fun to be out here,” Guardiero said. “This is my first time ever.”
Aside from the score – a 62-11 loss to the fourth-ranked Queen’s Gaels – Guardiero’s debut was about as good as it could be.
“It started off strong. My punting was good,” he said. “I didn't get to do any kicking, but my punting started off pretty well and then I had a couple of iffy ones toward the end of the game. I've just got to pick it up from here.”
The Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School grad had six punts for a total of 247 yards. His longest punt of 55 yards helped raise his average to 41.2 yards per punt.
Guardiero played the game in a jersey that didn’t have his name on the back.
“Hopefully I'll get it soon,” Guardiero said. “Hopefully I'll get another opportunity to dress, but if this the only one this year, I'm happy with that. I just got to come out here and play with the guys I've been calling family for four years.”
Guardiero joined the Gryphons after finishing his high school football with the Bishop Macdonell Celtics where he was a clutch receiver, kicker and punter in District 10 high school football play.
“It's taken me four years – four years to the moment of my life,” he said. “It doesn't matter about the score. It doesn't matter about anything – the atmosphere, Homecoming.
“I wish we would've won in front of the Homecoming crowd. But like coach said, we didn't turn on each other, we didn't do anything, we stuck together as a team. That's all you can ask for. When it's a score like that and the team is tight staying together that's all you can ask for.”
The Gryphons didn’t give the sell-out crowd of 7,300 much to cheer about. They fell behind early and struggled to get their own drives going or to stop Queen’s drives.
The Gaels were ahead 12-3 at the end of the first quarter, 33-3 at halftime and 38-3 at the end of the third quarter.
Juwan Jeffrey scored the lone touchdown for the hosts as he found the Queen’s endzone on a four-yard pass from Tommy Yanchuk, Guelph’s third quarterback of the game. Yanchuk connected with Vyshonne Janusas for a two-point convert to complete the scoring with 20 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. The touchdown came on a 99-yard drive for the Gryphons.
“Especially for the crowd and for the guys on the sidelines and everyone on the team, that was good,” Guardiero said of the Gryphon touchdown. “It was what we needed. Unfortunately, it was a little late, but it was what we needed at that point. It got the guys fired up on the bench. We were all excited and then we came and we got that onside kick, that fired the guys up even more. Even though we went out and lost, we could still hold our heads high because we finished on a pretty good note.”
The last-minute scoring drive lifted Guelph’s total offence in the game to 232 yards. Without that drive, the Gryphons would’ve had more yards in penalties (140 on 17 calls) than in total offence.
Queen’s had 635 yards of total offence.
Quarterbacks Jake Helfrich, Shawn Lal and Yanchuk combined to complete 10 of 26 pass attempts for the Gryphons. Isaiah Smith had 18 carries for 111 yards and Janusas caught four passes for 70 yards.
For Queen’s, starter James Keenan and injury replacement Alex Vreeken completed 14 of 25 pass attempts for 263 yards and two touchdowns.
Anthony Soles found plenty of room to run on the Alumni Stadium turf as he had 19 carries for 244 yards and four touchdowns as he scored on plays of seven, 15, five and four yards.
The loss drops the Gryphons to 1-4 and leaves them tied with the York Lions. The Waterloo Warriors and McMaster Marauders are at 1-3 making them the four teams that are currently on the outside of the playoff positions. Top seven in the 11-team league qualify for the playoffs.
The Gryphons have a bye next weekend before they’re to host McMaster in the first Highway 6 Bowl Oct. 7 at 6 p.m.
