The Guelph Gryphon football team dropped a 40-23 exhibition game to the Concordia Stingers in Montreal Thursday afternoon.

The Gryphons dropped their first and only exhibition match of the season.  This was one of the first times in many years the Gryphons played a pre-season game. 
"Exhibition games are a good way to get a feel for the things your team needs to work on before the start of the season," said first year head coach Stu Lang. "Today's game served that purpose well.  It showed us that we still have some areas that need improvement, but that's what we'll use practice for until our first regular season game next week."
 

Guelph led 7-0 at the end of the first quarter before Concordia charged ahead 24-10 by the end of the second.  The Gryphons closed the gap to 24-23 by the end of the third before Concordia went ahead again to finish with the 40-23 win. 
 

Overall the Gryphons tallied 293 yards of offence, while the Stingers tallied 416.

"It was a very good start for us. All in all, I'm very pleased with the way we played. The whole team showed great effort and hustle," commented Lang.   
 

Lang also had high praise for third-year quarterback Chris Rossetti (Mississauga) (Mississauga, Ont.) who completed three of eight passes for 37 yards and one touchdown, after playing only limited minutes so the team could see each of the four quarterbacks play. 
 

"I think Chris Rossetti (Mississauga)) especially played well, which was good to see.  He made the right decisions about when to throw and when to run."
 

Also taking part in the quarterback duties wereLuke Nangle (London) (London, Ont.), Brian Chris (Waterloo) (Waterloo, Ont.) and Jamie Cook (Collingwood) (Colingwood, Ont.).  The four quarterbacks combined to complete 12-of-30 passes for 126 yards and two touchdowns. 
 

Scoring for Guelph was Keith Walker (Burlington)(Burlington, Ont.) and Dave Honig (Sarnia) (Sarnia, Ont.) who both caught touchdown passes. Each scoring a field goal was first year kicker's Julian Tropea (Niagara Falls) (Niagara Falls, Ont.), Evan Short (Burltington, Ont.) and Brett MacDonald (Burlington)(Burlington, Ont.)

The Gryphons will kick off its 2010 regular season at 3:00 p.m. September 1 against the Toronto Varsity Blues at Alumni Stadium.