Mustangs fall to Golden Hawks, first loss of the regular season in three years

(Source: Callista Laffrenier/Western Mustangs Football)

Early game mistakes hung over the Mustangs on Saturday afternoon when London faced off against the Laurier Golden Hawks in Waterloo.

The Golden Hawks took a 43-28 win home on their own turf.

This is the first regular season loss for the Mustangs since the second week of the 2021 season.

"We kind of dug ourselves a hole in the first half, we fumbled, we busted some coverages and then we took penalties but we were still in it," said Mustangs Head Coach Greg Marshall "Give Laurier credit though they did a good job in the second half when we got our feet under us a little offensively, they continued to drive the ball,"

The Golden Hawks secured a 14-0 lead early on in the game, which they held through the entire first quarter.

Western’s first points didn’t come until there were only 4:22 left in the second quarter, pushing the score to 17-2 at halftime.

In the third quarter, things were a bit more easily matched – the two teams sparred throughout, pushing the score to 40-22 with only 4:08 left in the game.

The Mustangs played until the last second despite the lead of the Golden Hawks, with 45 seconds left on the clock, quarterback Evan Hillock made the final score, bringing the total to 43-28.

"He was still fighting and that was kind of our mentality at that point," said Marshall "As I said to our guys in there (dressing room), time to learn from it, this isn't the end of the season and hopefully we will play these guys again and we'll just keep getting better."