The Calgary Stampeders knew they were going to be in tough against a motivated BC Lions team.

After being soundly beaten in week one at McMahon Stadium, the Leos came out swinging  — in fancy new duds nonetheless — to a 26-22 victory Saturday night.

While BC played well enough to win, the Stamps know they could have won this one.

“We didn’t make enough plays,” a frustrated Kevin Glenn said after the game. “Our defence gave us ample opportunities and we just didn’t make the plays on offence.”

A quick strike by the Lions on their first series, and later a kickoff return for a touchdown, had the Stampeders on their heels going into halftime.

Adding to the Stamps’ woes, offensive leader Nik Lewis went down with a gruesome leg injury — later revealed to be a broken leg.

Those events aside, the offence struggled to get any momentum going.

“I don’t think any one thing went wrong,” said Jon Cornish, who was held to his lowest yards-per-carry average this season of 4.9. “I just think when you’re playing in a situation where you’re playing against a great team you have to play great football.”

Glenn pointed to the loss as being a team loss as opposed to singling out individual players for a poor performance. He also did not want the Lewis injury to be used as an excuse.

“Guys will have to step up,” said Glenn. “We’ve shown that no one guy is going to slow us down. It’s nothing against Nik. He’s a great guy, a good leader, but guys now have to step up.”

“You need twelve guys to play well. Our offence was out-worked. We didn’t make enough plays.”

The defence was a bit of a silver lining during Saturday’s match as the unit pressured Travis Lulay into throwing three interceptions and corralling him for a sack.

Forcing BC into numerous two-and-outs, Calgary’s defenders kept the squad in a game that could have gotten away in a hurry.

Still, savvy QB hunter Charleston Hughes wasn’t satisfied with the team’s overall performance.

“We let each other down,” said a disappointed Hughes. “I feel like we could have been a lot better all the way around.”

Next week the Stamps travel to The Big Smoke to clash with the top eastern-leading Toronto Argonauts.

Hughes is looking forward to the matchup in hopes of putting the loss to the Lions in the rearview.

“It looks like we played our worst for the most part. But we got one bad game out of the way, now it’s time to just move forward,” said the speedy d-man.

After all, the best cure for the pain of a loss is the sweet taste of victory.