ROAR REPORT: Lions thump Roughriders, lock up home playoff date

Vancouver, BC- The BC Lions clutched up when they needed to the most as they close out the regular season with a convincing 41-18 over the Saskatchewan Roughriders in front of 26,481 fans at BC Place. The victory assures the Lions of 2nd in the West and home field advantage against Winnipeg in next Sunday’s division semi-final. Jonathon Jennings and the offence overcame three first half turnovers, including an interception on the first play from scrimmage, and built a 24-4 halftime lead. Jennings found Manny Arceneaux for two touchdown passes and Terrell Sinkfield Jr. chipped in with an end zone reception of his own. The Leos kept pounding in the second half as Travis Lulay found Bryan Burnham for a 4th quarter touchdown and Paul McCallum kicked three of his four field goals. The 46-year old veteran also added four converts in his first appearance since returning to the club on Tuesday.

“It’s huge for the fans, huge for the organization,” Jennings said about locking up second. “I can’t wait until the fans come out. It’s time for Vancouver to be excited about the football team again. We’ve got the team to do it, we got a great environment here and I love our fans.”

In addition to the three touchdowns, Jennings finished with 307 yards passing and also eclipsed the 5,000-yard mark in his first full season. The 24-year old joins Doug Flutie (1991), Dave Dickenson (2003) and Casey Printers (2004) as the only Lions’ QB’s to hit that plateau in a single season. Arceneaux’s ten catches put him at 105 for the season and is the first Lion to surpass the century mark since Geroy Simon in 2006.

“He’s phenomenal,” Jennings said of his favourite target. “He’s a guy who comes to work every day, takes advantage of every opportunity he has and he deserves it.”

Lulay played the entire fourth quarter and was four of five for 24 yards and the major. Jeremiah Johnson rushed for 40 yards on eight carries and was held to limited action after suffering a leg injury early on. In his place, Chris Rainey had 89 yards on nine carries. The defence forced three turnovers and Brandon Stewart led the way with four tackles.

Wally Buono commended his team for rallying after the early turnovers. “Winning is always difficult and the thing about football is you’ve got to be able to rebound and the first play of the game Jonathon gets hit, they make a good play, but that’s just part of football, there is ups and downs,” Buono said. “The guys have been great the last three weeks, and they’ve practiced well, they’ve been focused. They accomplished the first goal which is to secure a home playoff game and now the second goal is to win a home playoff game.”

Quotable

“That was the mission. I knew this team had the potential to make the playoffs and have a good run. Everything is working out right now so we just have to take care of business in the playoffs.”- a beaming Sinkfield on joining a Lions team at the right time.

Bake’s Takes

Although the goal remains to sip champagne from the Grey Cup, we need to take a moment and applaud the 12-6 regular season. The expectations were high in training camp, but it’s always optimistic when everybody is 0-0. There were plenty of great stories such as the emergence of Jennings, Arceneaux’s career year, a breakout season for Burnham plus “Team 100” getting back to their bone crushing ways with Solomon Elimimian‘s successful return from a ruptured achilles. After the back-to-back losses to Winnipeg, this team made a choice that they were going to move past it and enter the playoffs on a high. The end result is the first home playoff game since 2012. Buckle up!

They’ve been preaching the “next man up” mentality all season long but perhaps no one has embraced it better than Keynan Parker. Pressed into service after Anthony Gaitor went down, the Coquitlam native made a couple of big plays when the game was still close. It was shades of August 31st in Toronto when he was forced to start after Ronnie Yell suffered his injury in warm up. It is always a treat to see players who work hard in practice and do the job on special teams make the most of their opportunity. Buono praised Parker and suggested he may be given a serious look for a starting position in the secondary next year.

Just like riding a bike: McCallum proved he was worth brining back for the stretch drive by going perfect on field goals, the longest being from 44 yards out. It is only one game, but it felt like the automatic McCallum we were used to watching up until his departure from the den before last season. Richie Leone was no slouch either, averaging 48.5 yards per punt and 61 yards per kickoff. This kicking platoon will be more than beneficial.

Shout out to the home crowd, which was about 1,000 shy of a lower bowl sellout. With very few shades of Riders green in sight, it served as a reminder to how much fun BC Place can be when the stakes are high. It should only be amplified next week when there is a trip to Calgary on the line.

Stats Game

Arceneaux finished with 13 touchdown receptions, which led the entire CFL. In addition, his 1,566 receiving yards puts him in third spot behind Adarius Bowman and Derel Walker. Jennings’ 5,226 passing yards was good for third overall behind Bo Levi Mitchell and Mike Reilly. Perhaps the most impressive stat is Johnson in the backfield: despite dressing for only 11 games, he managed to put up 809 yards on the ground which is still good for fifth in the CFL. On defence, Elimimian finished with 128 tackles, two ahead of Montreal’s Bear Woods for the league lead. He will have a very good shot at collecting Most Outstanding Defensive Player honours in Toronto later this month.

Western Semi-Final

Get your tickets HERE or by calling 1-855-GO-LIONS. The action is set for Sunday, November 13th at 1:30PM against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.