Paul McCallum’s 53-yard field goal on the final play of the contest gave the BC Lions a 33-31 victory over the Calgary Stampeders in Canadian Football League action Saturday night at Vancouver’s BC Place.
The win allows the Lions to extend their winning streak to seven games pull even with the Stamps at 8-6 at the top of the West Division.
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“It was a last-play type of game,” said Stampeders head coach and general manager John Hufnagel. “It was a very disappointing loss, but our guys showed up to play. They played hard and they fought through adversity. Both teams made great plays and both teams had their share of mistakes.”
Despite the negative result, Hufnagel saw some of the same positives that carried the Stamps to a big home win over the Roughriders a week ago.
“I thought we turned the corner last week and got things going back in the same direction,” he said. “I liked a lot of the things that we did tonight. We’ve just got to move forward, take the positives and learn from the negatives and become a better football team.”
Calgary had taken a 31-30 lead late in the fourth quarter thanks to a 122-yard missed-field goal return touchdown by Larry Taylor, who had a big night with a total of 270 combined return yards.
The Stamps dug themselves into an early hole as BC roared out to a 14-0 lead. On Calgary’s first offensive play of the game, Lions lineman Keron Williams recorded a sack and forced a fumble that was recovered by BC. Three plays later, Travis Lulay hit Arland Bruce with a 20-yard touchdown pass.
On BC’s next possession, it was a 13-yard throw from Lulay to Geroy Simon that resulted in a major.
Calgary responded on the ensuing kickoff as Taylor returned the boot 60 yards to put the Stamps in good field position. That led to a one-yard touchdown run by short-yardage quarterback Drew Tate.
The visitors pulled even in the second quarter thanks to more special-teams work. The Stamps recovered a loose ball deep in Lions territory after BC’s Tim Brown fumbled on a missed-goal return. Shortly thereafter, Jon Cornish ran the ball in from the five-yard line to make the score 14-14.
BC went back ahead on Andrew Harris’ six-yard touchdown run and the rest of the first-half scoring consisted of an exchange of field goals — Calgary’s Rene Paredes from 36 yards and McCallum from 47 yards.
On their first possession of the second half, the Stampeders squared the game as Henry Burris hooked up with Landan Talley for an 81-yard catch-and-run score.
Calgary took its first lead of the night on a 67-yard punt single by Burke Dales, but BC responded with a pair of McCallum field goals to make the score 30-25 for BC.
The Stamps are on the road again next week as they travel east to Toronto to face the Argonauts on Friday, Oct. 14. The kickoff is at 5:30 p.m. MDT.
INDIVIDUAL STATS
PASSING
Cgy: Burris 15-19-193-1-0, Tate 0-1-0-0-0; BC: Lulay 19-32-252-2-0
RUSHING
Cgy: Cornish 9-49-1, Burris 5-31, Coker 6-19, Talley 1-12, Tate 3-3-1; BC: Brown 6-54, Lulay 3-15, Harris 6-10-1, J.Jackson 4-6, Gore 1-3
RECEIVING
Cgy: Talley 2-94-1, Lewis 6-45, Cote 2-16, Cornish 2-15, Bryant 1-11, Coker 1-7, Taylor 1-5; BC: Bruce 6-92-1, Gore 3-64, Simon 2-37-1, K.Johnson 2-29, Harris 4-21, Foster 1-8, Lumbala 1-1
NOTABLES
Cgy: Taylor 3-126 KOR 4-22 PR 1-122 MFGR 1 TD, Simpson 6 TKL 1 KD, Fassitt 6 TKL 1 KD, Stone 5 TKL 2 STT 1 SK, Claybrooks 3 TKL 1 FR; BC: McCallum 4-5 FG 3-3 PAT 15 PTS, Williams 3 TKL 1 SK 1 FF, McKenzie 7 TKL, Yurichuk 2 TKL 1 STT 1 FR, Kornegay 3 TKL 1 STT 2 KD