Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
The Saskatchewan Roughriders have lost a second straight game for the first time this year.
On Saturday night in Week 17 of the CFL season, the Roughriders dropped to 10-4 following a 27-25 loss to the Edmonton Elks, who improved to 6-9 to stay alive in the West Division playoff race.
In the game, the Roughriders, who were coming off a bye week after losing to the Montreal Alouettes in Week 15, found themselves down 11-0 early before battling back to take a 12-11 lead in the third quarter.
Then in the fourth quarter, Edmonton running back Justin Rankin scored two touchdowns to put the Elks up 24-12 before the Riders scored two touchdowns of their own in the final 2:18 of the game.
However, Saskatchewan couldn’t generate a two-point convert which would have tied the game and sent it to overtime.
“The silver lining for me is I know what this group is,” said Roughriders head coach Corey Mace. “I know what they have as far as being able to play to the last whistle.
“It’s just, I’d love us to start playing at the first whistle too.”
Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris threw two interceptions on his team’s opening drive before hitting Tommy Nield for a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter. The veteran pivot ended the night having completed 33 of 46 passes for 351 yards.
“I can’t turn the ball over early like that, but obviously we had some missed opportunities later as well offensively,” said Harris, who was intercepted on his third pass of the game by Elks defensive back Kenneth Logan, who fumbled the ball back to Saskatchewan, before Harris threw his second pick two plays later. “This one sucks, man; Can’t lie.
“The first drive was on me. And then from there, I thought they did a good job containing what we were trying to do. And then eventually we adjusted, and we were able to really start moving the ball with really good effectiveness.
“It pains me to keep saying the same thing over and over about the slow start. But obviously, this team has so much fight, so much resilience, so much character, and proud of the guys for fighting till the end but first drive of the game, I put us in a bad spot with both interceptions.”
After falling in a 11-0 hole, the Roughriders scored a field goal as the first half expired before taking the 12-11 lead in the third quarter as running back A.J. Ouellette — who had a 115-yard game to put him over 1,000 yards on the season — scored his seventh touchdown of the season.
And while Saskatchewan’s defence limited Rankin in the first three quarters of the game, the group — which allowed 305 passing yards to Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo — couldn’t contain Rankin in the final quarter as he found the end zone twice, with one of those scores being a 37-yard run.
“We’ve just got to be better overall defensively,” said Roughriders defensive end Malik Carney. “We’ve got to make stops when it’s crucial, especially in the fourth quarter like that when we need to stop.
“But we’re going to go back to the drawing board and make sure we get those corrections corrected and we’ll be better moving forward.”
After Harris hit Nield for the touchdown to make it 24-19 with the convert, the Elks added a field goal with 48 seconds left to go up 27-19.
Harris then generated a first down before finding KeeSean Johnson for a 46-yard strike down field before going back to Johnson — who eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark on the season on Saturday night with a team-high 119-yard game — for a 15-yard gain before the receiver was knocked out of bounds at the one-yard line with one second to go.
From there, short-yardage quarterback Tommy Stevens plunged into the end zone as time expired before Harris missed Ajou Ajou on the two-point convert to tie.
“We can’t afford to find ourselves in a 10-point hole,” said Mace. “We’re not at the point right now where we’re good enough to even start down 10 points.
“We can talk about it, which we’ve done. Clearly, that’s not good enough. So we’ve got to find other solutions as coaches and see how we get that fixed. Because, yeah, talking about it at nauseam, it’s not good enough.”
Saskatchewan also had other chances to put points on the board but Brett Lauther missed two of his four field goal attempts while Johnson fumbled on Edmonton’s 22-yard line in the first quarter.
The Roughriders also generated what should have been a defensive touchdown in the fourth quarter as defensive backs Benny Sapp III and DaMarcus Fields teamed up to strip Elks receiver Kaion Julien-Grant of the ball after he had made the catch before Kosi Onyeka scooped it up and ran it to the end zone.
However, the play had been whistled dead and Mace had to throw his challenge flag to secure the turnover. The drive resulted in a field goal by Lauther from 30 yards out to make it 12-11 at the time.
The Roughriders — who went on a seven-game winless skid last season before finishing 9-8-1 — will now get a chance to rebound on Friday in Ottawa against the Redblacks, who are a league-worst 4-10.
“When you’re 10-2 and everything’s going great, it’s easy to lead,” said Harris. “And when you drop two in a row, and obviously games you feel like you could have won, especially this one, it’s an important time to make sure that you keep everybody in the boat and let us know that our process is our process and we believe in one another.
“I do think our best football is right on the horizon. And I know last year we went through quite a losing stretch. And I kind of told you guys the same thing. This team has that, and I think this team is even better than the one from last year. And so I really, really believe in this team and I think we’ll be there in the end, but we just got to take it one game at a time.
“We don’t have any games to waste. And the silver lining of that is you get to play a lot more meaningful games down the stretch now.
“I’m excited about that.”
tshire@postmedia.com
