KINGSTON – The number 10 nationally ranked Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks were devastated with a 41-7 loss in Kingston when they faced the number five Queen's Gaels in front of 4,127 fans at Richardson Stadium.

The loss makes the team record 1-2 and puts the Hawks with a losing record for the first time since 2002.

"We opened up with a hard schedule and three competitive teams," said manager of football operations and head coach Gary Jeffries when asked to comment on the record. "We're in the meat of the schedule and we'll learn from today's performance as we look to next weekend's homecoming game."

Dan Brannagan (Burlington, Ont.) led the Gaels to a net offence of 639 yards including 438 over his 22 completions in the contest.  Brannagan threw five interceptions including one returned by Courtney Stephen (Brampton, Ont.) 37 yards eventually leading to Laurier's only touchdown of the day.

Ian Noble (West Vancouver, B.C.) started for the purple-and-gold and completed 2 of 5 before seeing Luke Thompson (London, Ont.) step in and connect once for a 43-yard touchdown pass to Shamawd Chambers (Markham, Ont.).  The pair finished off the day with a combined 11 completions on 24 attempts for 121 yards.

Noble and Thompson were on the ground and hurried all day as five Gaels added up nine sacks including Dee Sterling who had 5.5 as well as eight tackles (6 solo) and Osie Ukwuoma who had 1.5.

The Golden Hawk offence didn't move the ball many yards as the team netted 60 yards. Of the 25 drives in the contest, a total of five were for offensive yardage greater than 10 yards. Running back Ryan Lynch (Waterloo, Ont.) was held to 31 yards and along with Noble made up the 41 yards on the ground.

"We need to look at the film to find the breakdowns and see why what we did didn't work today," said Jeffries when asked about the lack of offence. "We have to be able to move the football in order to win games."

Laurier held Mike Giffin, last season's OUA leading rusher to just over a hundred yards including a major.  The Laurier defence, who were on the field for 33 minutes saw twenty-five athletes combine for 68 tackles (53 solo) with Courtney Stephen leading the group with eight (7 solo).

"We couldn't stop them right away and the offence got a lot of two-and-outs today," commented veteran linebacker Luke Pinder (Kitchener, Ont.) who returned to the lineup after sitting a week due to injury. "They took what [yardage] was available and use formations to beat us." Pinder picked up 6.5 tackles (5 solo) as well as two breakups.

Rookie defensive back Peter Mcdougall (Oshawa, Ont.) picked up two of the other interceptions while Mitchell Bosch (Langley, B.C.) got the final one.

Chris Mamo (London, Ont.) had another strong punting performance kicking an average of 41.7 yards over 15 times including three into the red zone. The fourth year punter, along with some great return coverage played a significant role in the battle for field position today.

The Golden Hawks return home for week four action to host the Windsor Lancers at 1:00 p.m. at University Stadium. The events are apart of homecoming weekend 2008. Tickets for the game are available online at laurierathletics.com Note for this week, the tailgate area requires a premium ticket which is available online as well as at the door. Gates open at 11:00 a.m.