TORONTO, Ont – If there were any questions about Eric Morelli starting for the Wilfrid Laurier University men’s football team in their first game against the York Lions, he sure provided some answers.
The quarterback threw for 258 total yards and three touchdowns as the Hawks started off on a good note in a 38-21 victory against the York Lions on Sunday afternoon.
The second-year got rid of his jitters late in the first quarter when he threw the ball to an open Greg Nyhof, giving Laurier a 7-0 lead. Morelli would follow up by sending a cannon to rookie Zeph Fraser to extend the lead to 14-0.
The Hawks took over from there, and York was not able to recover.
Despite making his first start, Morelli used a multitude of strategies to solve the York defence and to secure his first win as the Hawk pivot.
“Well [York’s defence] like to bring the pressure and I mean it’s no secret that this is my first start, we expected them to bring pressure,” Morelli said. “Just switching up the snap count, we knew was really important this week, and just sort of keeping them on edge and not letting them get that running start in the free hits.”
Late in the fourth quarter, Morelli would add a touchdown of his own. Instead of passing the ball off to a running back, he found a hole in the defence and sprinted to the endzone to put the final nail in the coffin.
“Well, we had been handing it off quite a bit all game,” Morelli said, when talking about his touchdown at the end of the game. “I sort of seen their D-ends sliding down, so I took a bit of a chance in the fourth and figured why not, and luckily he bit on it and tried to make the most of it,” he said.
Laurier starts off the season 1-0 and will have eight days to recover from injuries suffered before heading to Guelph on Monday, Sept. 7. Kickoff will be 1 p.m. in Guelph.