Stampeders.com Staff

The Stampeders opened the 2014 season with a 29-8 victory over the Montreal Alouettes on Saturday afternoon at McMahon Stadium.

Stamps quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell threw for 313 yards and two touchdowns including a 102-yard pass-and-run play with Maurice Price. It was the longest Calgary pass play since Jeff Garcia hooked up with Terry Vaughn for a 104-yard strike on June 23, 1996.

“Bo put it right on the money and I just ran up under it, caught it, and used my speed to do the rest,” said Price. “At the time, I didn’t realize that it was 100 yards but they told me later on the sideline. But thinking about it, I was running for quite a long time. It was good, but we got the win and that’s what it’s all about.”

In achieving his second career 300-yard game, Mitchell improved to 4-0 as a starter in the CFL.

The Stamps defence held the Alouettes to 187 yards total offence and Montreal had only a punt single until Steven Lumbala scored on a one-yard carry on the final play of the game.

In addition to Price’s long passing play on the final play of the first quarter, Mitchell found a wide-open Anthony Parker for a 16-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.

Jon Cornish had an 18-yard touchdown as part of his 108 yards of total offence — 67 rushing and 41 receiving. His day came to an end when he took a head-high tackle from Montreal’s Kyries Hebert, who was ejected from the contest.

“A little groggy, but he should be fine,” was head coach and general manager John Hufnagel’s report on the two-time defending rushing champion.

Calgary is now 5-2 in season-openers under Hufnagel including wins in each of the past three years.

“I thought we played very physical on both sides of the football,” said Hufnagel. “On special teams, we played fast which was something we wanted to do after last week’s performance with our coverage teams.

“We were put in some difficult positions coming out on the minus one yard line and going against the wind. There was some adversity out there that I thought our team survived and made some plays in the face of adversity. I think we took a first right step going in the direction that we want to go. A lot of work to be done now.”

The Stamps opened the scoring on a 78-yard Rob Maver punt single and made it 4-0 on a 38-yard Rene Paredes field goal. Price’s touchdown made it 11-0 after 15 minutes and there was no scoring in the second quarter.

Paredes hit a 26-yard field goal in the third quarter and Maver added a 88-yard punt single before Montreal got on the board with Sean Whyte’s 48-yard punt single.

The Stamps held Alouettes quarterback Troy Smith to just 17 completions on 40 passes and sacked him four times, once each by Corey Mace, Charleston Hughes, Juwan Simpson and DeQuin Evans, who was making his CFL debut.

The Stamps have a bye next week before returning to action on July 12 with a road game against the Toronto Argonauts.