Ptaszek guides team to the top

Brandon Meawasige

Assistant Sports Editor

Striving for the pinnacle of university football in Canada and facing an unknown opponent, Head Coach Stefan Ptaszek and the McMaster Marauders travel to Moncton, New Brunswick this week to represent the OUA as champions in the 2011 Uteck Bowl on November 19.

Ptaszek, in his sixth season as bench boss, has coached the Marauders to the program’s first OUA title since 2003.

The 2003 championship, and Mac’s previous three in a row, were coached by Western’s current head coach Greg Marshall. By winning the Yates Cup, Ptaszek has joined Marshall in the upper echelons of McMaster’s football history.

“Its been a great week, the well wishers from former presidents, former athletic directors, alumni and the greater marauder football family have all taken the time to say congratulations, how impressed they are with the 2011 season and wishing us the best of luck going forward,” said Ptaszek of the accomplishment.

However, as he will tell you, it is not the coaching staff and their accomplishments that will drive this team forward. “It’s not about us [Coaches] lifting a Yates Cup again, it was all about watching these kids lift the Yates Cup for the first time,” he added.

Unfortunately, such is the rigor of CIS playoff football; the Marauders must put the Yates victory behind them and look towards their next game.

Lining up opposite to Mac on Saturday will be Acadia Axemen, who have had an interesting trip to the Vanier Cup semi-final of their own.

Essentially, neither team was touted as the conference front-runner until after the championship game. The losing teams in both cases, Western and St. Mary’s, were heavy favorites prior to and during the season.

That being said, the Uteck Bowl features two very worthy participants this year pitting a Mac team loaded with firepower on both sides of the ball against an Axemen squad that won 5 of 7 major individual awards in the AUS.

“They are a very well-coached, disciplined team with playmakers at every level of both the offence and defence as you would expect from a championship team" Ptaszek said of the Axemen, whose coach, Jeff Cummins, won AUS coach of the year.

Ptaszek and his staff have a very tough team on their hands this week, needing to prepare for something they haven’t faced yet in the playoffs; a star quarterback with the talent and skill set to take control of an entire game.

The case can be made that Acadia’s pivot and AUS offensive most valuable player Kyle Graves will be the toughest test for McMasters defense all season. “He has a strong arm and he can run the ball really well and has had a fantastic year,” said Ptaszek.

“The OUA is one of the best conferences in the country and it gets you ready for all kinds of football. Playing Austin Kennedy and Donnie Marshall gets you ready for a Kyle Graves,” added the coach.

One thing is certain, no matter the success of the 2011 Marauders; it will be difficult to find Ptaszek taking any form of personal credit. Even if his defence does manage to stop Graves and his team wins the game, he will surely find another Marauder whom to credit with an amazing performance. This cohesive, unselfish, team- oriented way of doing things precipitates into the style of play that has made his team so successful.

A quality that may have gone unnoticed if not for the series of setbacks endured by the team this year. Forced to play without Kyle Quinlan for three games, the Marauders had to account for the absence of their offensive heart and soul.

For a team centered on one or two players, losing those players would be disastrous - think about the affect of removing the legs of a table.

Losing their starting running back Joey Nemet, cornerback Joey Cupido and Quinlan just to name a few, Ptaszek needed to work the pieces that remained; a predicament that not only threatened the well being of a few games, but the entire 2011 season. Not for lack of personnel, however, a backup quarterback and rookie running back are not traditional picks to carry a powerhouse team to the championship.

The Marauders not only managed to get by, instead, the team dominated the conference this year, seamlessly transitioning from line up change to line up change.

Going into the Uteck Bowl, Mac is as healthy as ever and Ptaszek will be able to use the full of extent of the weapons at his disposal.

With the focus now on the Vanier Cup, every decision is bigger and the consequences magnified.

It’s not about numbers and achievements for Ptaszek at this point, but about his players and their chance at glory, especially the nine seniors on the roster. Having had a chance to watch them lift the cup was a special moment for the coach. “Watching Matt Peressini lift that Yates Cup, as a fifth-year senior, was about as cool a thing as you will ever see.”

For all involved, lifting the Vanier would be the best possible outcome.