By John DeCoste
The Acadia football Axemen picked up three major awards when Atlantic University Sport announced the 2012 AUS football major awards Thursday.
For the second year in a row, Axemen quarterback Kyle Graves was the big winner. The fifth-year senior from Barrie, ON was a repeat winner as AUFC Player of the Year.
Graves led Acadia to a second straight 7-1 season, leading the conference in a number of offensive categories, including passing yards (2,012), completions (156), passing touchdowns (14), completion percentage (57.1) as well as being the conference's best punter ((40.3 yards per punt).
Graves wrapped up his AUS career in the Top-10 in every career passing category - fourth in career receptions (418), fifth in pass attempts (753) and tenth overall with 39 career touchdown passes. His career total of 5,433 passing yards is third in school history behind Larry Jusdanis and Bob Cameron.
Axemen running back Thomas Troop, a native of Alliston, ON, was named AUFC Rookie of the Year.
The 18-year-old appeared in five games this season, four of then as a starter, and rushed for 421 yards on 63 carries, an average of 84.2 yards per game, 6.7 yards per carry and scored one touchdown.
Axemen head coach Jeff Cummins captured the Larry Uteck Trophy as AUFC Coach of the Year.
It was the second straight year, and the fourth time in his 10 years as Acadia head coach, that Cummins has been chosen coach of the year (he also won the award back-to-back in 2004 and 2005).
Since becoming head coach in 2003, Cummins, a native of Torrance, CA, has a career record of 49 wins and 45 losses in regular season and post-season play. He led the Axemen to conference titles in 2005, 2006 and 2011.
This season, the Axemen went 7-1 overall (7-0 against conference opponents), and led the AUFC with 229 points scored in eight games.
Graves, Troop and Cummins now all go into contention for CIS awards in their respective categories (Cummins was the CIS Coach of the Year in 2011).
