By Stampeders.com staff

The Calgary Stampeders equaled their biggest comeback in franchise history as they rallied for a 40-33 victory over the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday at McMahon Stadium.

The Stamps trailed the game 29-3 with less than five minutes to play in the first half before scoring seven points late in the second quarter and putting 15 points on the board in both the third and fourth quarters to complete the comeback.

The 26-point comeback matches a rally by the 1987 Stampeders in a road game against the Ottawa Rough Riders as Calgary came back from a 37-11 deficit on that occasion to win 39-38.

In addition to overcoming a big deficit on Saturday, the Stamps had to deal with injuries that knocked key performers such as Bo Levi Mitchell, Charleston Hughes, Marquay McDaniel, Demonte’ Bolden and Ben D’Aguilar out of the game.

Drew Tate came off the bench to replace Mitchell and completed the rally with touchdown passes to Jabari Arthur and Jon Cornish.

The win extends the Stamps’ winning streak to six games and improves Calgary’s league-leading record to 10-1.

“In the second half, we played better football,” said Stampeders head coach and general John Hufnagel, who was celebrating his 63rd birthday on Saturday. “We made some mistakes that hurt us, both offensively and defensively, in the first half.

“Fortunately, we got that score at the end of the first half to give us some life. We came into the locker room, made a commitment that we were going to go out, play hard, play better football and see what the final score is. The guys made some great plays to win the game.”

In addition to the game-winning touchdown with 1:48 left in the game, Cornish scored on a spectacular 79-yard run in the third quarter. Cornish finished the game with 174 rushing yards and 35 receiving yards.

“That touchdown run was a fantastic run,” said Hufnagel. “Jon Cornish is a force — we know that, and we want to get him the ball.”

“This only begins to show how good we really can be,” said Cornish, who has 446 rushing yards in the past three contests including three straight 100-yard plus performances. “This is a key learning experience for us. We just realized we needed to do something or this game is going to get out of hand.”

“I talked to the team before the game tonight about greatness,” said veteran receiver Nik Lewis, who had a team-high seven catches on Saturday and passed the 11,000-receiving-yard mark for his career. “I said, ‘Do you want to be great?’ and they said ‘Yes.’ You have to have adversity to be able to be great you have to be able to overcome adversity because that’s what propels you to be great.”

The comeback started with 38 seconds left in the first half when Mitchell connected with Sederrik Cunningham for a 12-yard touchdown pass.

Cornish’s 79-yard scoring run in the third quarter was followed by a two-point convert run by Matt Walter and then a 14-yard touchdown catch by Brad Sinopoli.

In the fourth quarter, the touchdowns by Arthur and Cornish were sandwiched around a two-point convert catch by Cornish.

After Rene Paredes had opened the scoring with a 28-yard field goal, the Argos scored four straight majors as Ricky Ray threw touchdown passes to Andre Durie, Trent Guy, Spencer Watt and Jason Barnes.

The Stamps hit the road next week to face the Montreal Alouettes in a Sunday matinee. Kickoff is at 11 a.m. MDT.