Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

Lions go 11 and 0....catch me if you can!!

By 250 News

 Lions 27-Alouettes 26

The Montreal Alouettes must develop a collective nervous twitch facing the prospects of any contest against these Lions, especially when a streak is at stake. Plus the Als have been winless at BC Place since 2000.

This during Montreal runs where an encounter with an also ran BC team (at the time) would have been seen as an inconvenience at most....or just a bug splat on the windshield of their coronation mobile.

Tale of the tape:

Man that was close!!

36,000 fans flocked to BC Place Stadium in the hopes they would not only be entertained but  would be witness to history in the making.

The first 3 quarters were anything but vintage as both offenses weren’t able to put up the kinds of numbers most might expect considering their offensive showing to date in the season...but for different reasons.

The Lions started like they would again dominate their opponent when Aaron Lockett took the Montreal kickoff along with their coverage to his left and handed it to Antonio Warren on the reverse. The play came off like it was drawn up as Warren found a lot of open field which he utilized to run the ball 78 yards to the Als 35.

The Leos went two and out resulting in an O’Mahony FG from the 30....3-0 BC.

Lions would concede a safety at the 10 minute mark to make it 3-2

Ezra Landra made it 4-2 BC midway through the second quarter giving up a single on an O’Mahony punt and a 6 yd. touchdown by Geroy Simon from Dave Dickenson would finish the half at 11-2 Lions.

Had it not been for 2 Montreal fumbles on crucial drives along with undisciplined play resulting in penalties the Als would have dominated the Lions on the scoreboard as they had on the field by running up 220 yards of offense.

A frustrated Dickenson would end the half 11 of 17 with just 126 yards passing as his offensive line was pushed around and beaten with regularity. He would be sacked a total of 6 times in this game.

Montreal started the scoring in the second half as Duval would strike again for 3 early in the third. Jason Clairmont continued to have a strong showing with a 3 yard TD pass from Dickenson at 12:37 to round out the scoring in the quarter. A Lions 2 point conversion
failed...17-5 BC.

To this point BC had scored 13 points off of Alouette turnovers and the Als had accumulated 16 penalties to the Lions 6. The Leos entered the game tops in the league for the least penalties.

The Lions started the final frame with better offensive line play resulting in Dickenson having more success moving the team.

O’Mahony hit for a 20 yarder early in Q4 to make the score 20-5 but the warm fuzzy feeling evaporated as Anthony Calvillo got his team on track at about the 10 minute mark with 2 touchdowns to Cahoon and Terry Vaughn and along with a 2 point conversion tied the score at
20.

The teams traded majors with a 16 yard pass to Myers from Dave Dickenson and this would be answered with a 3 yarder to Stala from Calvillo....27-26 BC. The ball was turned over to the Lions as a 2 point attempt was unsuccessful when Ben Cahoon failed to haul in a pass from his quarterback and was also flagged for offensive pass interference.

At one point late in the game Dave Dickenson had a run of 16 straight completions.

Dickenson finished the game with 300+ yards passing and Calvillo ran up over 400 yards in the air.

Notes:

Saturday night’s win puts the Lions into a second place tie with the 1954-55 Edmonton Eskimos for consecutive regular season victories during the league’s history, and this outcome is their 14th straight win dating back to last season.

Last weeks defensive player of the week Baron Miles missed tonight’s contest with chicken pox.

The game was on the CBC list of CFL contests to cover, but rumor has it the broadcaster didn’t want to face any labor problems in a unionized stadium....hence no English language TV coverage.

Ezra Landry, one of the leagues top punt returners was back in the lineup tonight after missing a couple of games while attending to family matters in New Orleans.

It’s worthwhile mentioning the Leos have successfully dumped the Al’s on their collective keisters home and on the road to end Alouette runs in four out of the last four straight seasons.

Penalties would kill off much of the Alouette momentum throughout this one as they had no less than 20 penalties called against them. Part of their problem was the new offensive alignment introduced by coach Don Mattews as his “O” line had difficulty with timing, resulting in several offsides.

The Lions entered the game #1 in the CFL at +18 for give aways / take aways and that number improved with several turnovers by the Als.

Special team coverage was outstanding for the Lions as they held down Ezra Landry, which frankly is like trying to bottle fog.

BC now leads the Eskimos by 8 points with 2 of their remaining games to be played at Commonwealth Stadium.


Next game Sat. Sept. 24th 5:00PM at Commonwealth Stadium against the second place Eskimos.
Previous Story - Next Story



Return to Home