OTTAWA — The Saskatchewan Roughriders have proven to be a resilient team through the first few weeks of the Canadian Football League season, and at no time was that more on display that Friday night in Ottawa.
The Riders overcame an absolutely awful start to outscore the Redblacks 27-6 in the second and third quarters before going on to a 27-22 victory at TD Place Stadium.
Saskatchewan improves to 3-1 on the campaign and remain in second place in the West Division, Ottawa falls to 0-4 and are last in the East Division.
That the victory happened after what Saskatchewan went through in the first 15 minutes offered a pretty good example of how a team’s fate can change rather quickly in the CFL — but early on, it was some familiar faces doing the damage.
It all began when former Rider standout A.J. Allen intercepted Saskatchewan quarterback Trevor Harris on the first series of the game. That led to former Rider quarterback Jake Maier marching the field with ease to put his team up 7-0 five minutes into the contest. One series later, a blocked punt led to a field goal by former Rider Brett Lauther, and Ottawa had a 10-0 lead in no small part due to a series of Saskatchewan miscues.
“I don’t know what it is about this place, but weird stuff happens when we play here,” head coach Corey Mace said of the slow start and rapid recovery. “What I thought is when we needed to decide a ball, to make a play, we responded when we needed to. As always, tons of [stuff] to look at, to get better at, but we needed to get it, we did that.”
The Riders settled down after falling behind by double digits, with Dhel Duncan-Busby’s first touchdown of the season getting them back in the game. The teams then exchanged field goals and went into the dressing room tied 13-13, but not before Riders linebacker Nick Wiebe had a crucial forced fumble and recovery on a Kalil Pimpleton punt return.
The Riders special teams had been much-maligned after giving up a handful of huge plays in recent games, but tonight was not that night, and Wiebe’s strip and scoop was a crucial momentum-builder for Saskatchewan. Here’s how Wiebe described how things went down.
“I was actually the scraper on the play, so we sent the usual scraper hot, so that means I got to be behind everybody else,” Wiebe began. “It felt like there was 25 yards to the boundary on us, so I felt I had to come crash down on it. Aubrey [Miller] did a great job of spilling it right to me, so one of 12 effort, honestly. They cut the field off, it was a middle-field return all the way, and our field guys won and all the guys in the interior won, so it left that to me to make a play, and I was fortunate enough to do so.”
The second half saw the Saskatchewan special teams once again come up with a huge play, this time on the other side of the ball when Mathew Sexton took an Ottawa punt 101 yards down the sideline to the house for the first touchdown of his CFL career.
KeeSean Johnson then made it a 27-16 Riders lead to close out the third quarter with his lone touchdown in a nine-catch, 137-yard outing, and it appeared Saskatchewan was in control of things coming home.
Not so fast, as Ottawa picked up another major early in the quarter, and Saskatchewan would need a critical third-down stop from Jaxon Ford with 2:41 to play in the game to keep Ottawa from closing ground.
That’s where things would end, and the Green and White had another tough win in the books.
“I think it's the worst we played this year, but we were able to make some big plays when we needed them,” said Harris, who finished 18-for-31 passing for 243 yards, two majors and the interception. That's kind of the most important thing, being able to respond to adversity. We were able to respond and climb out of the hole and be able to get a win, and it was complimentary football a team win. I was proud of us in terms of being able to make some plays when we needed them offensively.”
Saskatchewan is back in action on Sunday, July 12 when they host the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Game time is 6:30 p.m. from Mosaic Stadium.
