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They Got Cat Class and They Got Cat Style

By 250 News

-by John Goodwin


Lions 40-Stamps 27


The Lions took their 9 game home win streak into BC Place Stadium last night not only looking for another 2 important points but also a win over their first divisional rival this season.

The Stamps were statistically the best defensive show in the league allowing only 88 points against in their first 4 games. On the other side of the ball however they would not be striking fear into the hearts of all comers scoring only 99 points to date good for 8th out of 9 teams.

The Lions were defensively 3rd best overall allowing 93 PA and sporting the league’s 6th best offensive showing with 122 points scored.

BC was in first place along with the Edmonton Eskimos but the Leos had a game in hand.

The home town heros entered the contest with the view that if they were to keep Henry Burris in the pocket they believed they had a good chance of winning all the marbles. This proved to be mostly idealistic thinking as the Calgary QB eventually moved about his backfield with relative ease for the first 3 quarters, running up the offense on the sometimes frustrated Leos seemingly at will.

The tale of the tape:
BC started slowly as Henry Burris found Jeremaine Copeland for a 40 yard TD at 8:48 of the first quarter as the Lions were caught in a zone and Copeland found his way in behind coverage for the score. The march covered 91 yards on 5 plays.

Joffery Reynolds was to run the Stampeder lead to 11 with a 3 yd. scamper capping off a 93 yard drive on 6 plays. The Lions were getting killed on the run as the Stamps closed out the first quarter with a total net yards of 184 vs. BC’s net total of 69.

It was however in the 2nd Quarter that Dave Dickenson was to get Antonio Warren involved in a serious way and his running back was to reward his signal caller with a 12 yd. major as the Lions marched 95 yards on 11 plays....14-10 Calgary.

Late in the second quarter Antonio Warren was to make his presence known again by tearing up his city’s newly installed synthetic grass for a 50 yd. romp from scrimmage to the Stampeder 10 yard line. This would set up a TD from Dickenson to Geroy Simon for the score and a 17-14 lead. Calgary would quickly reply with a 3 pointer by Sandro DeAngelis.

Lion fans would be rewarded again early in the 3rd quarter with a pass by Dave Dickenson to Ryan Thelwell for the major and BC regains the lead 24-17.

The joy was short-lived as a Burris to Copeland 66 yard pass and run play to the BC 2 set up the TD as Burris called his own number tying up the game again at 24.

The 2 teams traded field goals before Calgary gave up a safety early in the 4th quarter and BC would not let up on the Stamps as TD’s to Thelwell and Tony Simmons capped off the win.

Game notes:

The Lions dominated the Stamps for most of the 4th quarter as an exasperated Henry Burris began forcing the ball into heavy coverage ending key drives and causing one turnover.

Tony Simmons left the game with what looked like a knee injury.

Geroy Simon was lost to the Leos for most of the 2nd. half with a hamstring pull.

Ryan Thelwell had 2 touchdowns for the night. His performance was key, with the loss of the Lions two offensive stars to injury.

Antonio Warren was a one man wrecking crew.

Edmonton visits BC Place Stadium for what should be the mother of all battles next Friday.
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