Road To The Vanier: Friday Night Bowling

Continuing our Road to the Vanier series, here's a look at the Uteck and Mitchell Bowls, the CIS semifinals. Both will be televised live on TSN Friday night, so tune in to see who's headed to the Vanier Cup in Vancouver!

Uteck Bowl: (easternmost semifinal): #4 McMaster Marauders (OUA champions) at #9 Acadia Axemen (AUS champions), 6:30 p.m. Eastern, TSN: This is the new-blood half of the draw, as neither of these teams has won a conference championship in quite a while. Acadia last claimed the Loney Bowl in 2006, while McMaster hadn't won a Yates Cup since 2003. Both teams are coming off a string of recent failures at this stage, too; Acadia was clobbered 31-10 by Laurier in 2005 and 57-10 by Laval in 2006 in their last two trips to the Uteck Bowl, while McMaster lost four straight CIS semifinals from 2000 to 2003. One of these teams will end that streak Friday night.

This has the potential to be an interesting clash of offensive styles, too. McMaster is reasonably pass-focused thanks to the arm of quarterback Kyle Quinlan (who was suspended for three games this season thanks to an incident at a bar that's left him facing multiple assault charges, including assaulting a police officer). Quinlan completed 16 of 24 passes (66.7 per cent) for 275 yards and four touchdowns against Western in a 41-19 Yates Cup triumph last week (Mac's Ryan Chmielewski is pictured hoisting the trophy above), and he can be a dual-threat, too; he also rushed 10 times for 103 yards.

Meanwhile, Acadia has a competent quarterback of their own in Kyle Graves, but their offence is much more rushing-based. Graves completed 12 of 16 passes (75 per cent) last week in the Loney Bowl, but only threw for 170 yards. The most important element of the Acadia attack came on the ground; Zack Skibin led the way with 147 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries, but Brett Haenni added 62 more on 10 carries and Graves himself chipped in 78 rushing yards on 10 attempts. The Marauders decisively thumped a ground-based team last week in their win against Western, but a win out east won't be easy. Still, there's a good chance they can pull it off.

Prediction: McMaster 31, Acadia 24.

Mitchell Bowl: (westernmost semifinal): #1 Laval Rouge et Or (RSEQ champions) at #2 Calgary Dinos (Canada West champions), 9:30 p.m. Eastern, TSN: This is the old-blood half of the draw, and it's a rematch of last year's Vanier Cup (not in the same location, though: this one's in Calgary instead of Laval's Stade PEPS outside Quebec City. Sorry for the mistake there initially.). Hopefully, this will prove to be closer than the 29-2 beatdown the Rouge et Or handed the Dinos in that meeting.

The Dinos have been a team on the verge of greatness lately, but they haven't quite been able to get over the hump. They've won the last four Hardy Cups as Canada West champions (the first time any team has won four straight outright Canada West championships since Saskatchewan did it from 1934-37), and have made it to the last two Vanier Cups. They lost to Queen's and Laval in those championship games, though.

Many pegged the Dinos to take a step backwards this year, as several of their key players graduated or left for the CFL, but they managed to come out on top of the Canada West heap nonetheless, and they did so in fine fashion with a 62-13 dismantling of UBC in the Hardy Cup last week. They're a strong team based around the three-pronged rushing attack of Steven Lumbala (194 yards on 22 carries last week), Matt Walter and Anthony Woodson, but they also have a capable quarterback in Eric Dzwilewski (who efficiently threw for 112 yards and ran for 101 more and four touchdowns last Friday). The question is if that will be enough to get by the Rouge et Or, though.

Laval has continued to be the CIS' top steamroller this season. Yes, they lost once (a close game on the road against the Montreal Carabins) and even fell from the #1 ranking for a short time, but they've been dominant the rest of the time. That dominance was thoroughly on display in last week's Dunsmore Cup, where they demolished the Carabins 30-7. Running back Sebastian Levesque is the top threat here, and he had 197 yards and two touchdowns on just 17 carries (a ridiculous 11.2 yards per carry average) last week, but this team has playmakers at almost every position. Quarterback Bruno Prud'homme is capable and generally quite efficient, but the Rouge et Or's greatest strength is their dominant defence. Expect that unit to shine in Friday's late game.

Prediction: Laval 31, Calgary 14.