By Max Campbell
Stampeders.com

Despite totalling 84 total yards on 13 total touches, Jon Cornish and the Calgary offence struggled on Saturday night in a 15-11 loss to the visiting Eskimos.

A potential game-winning drive was halted in the red zone by an Eskimos interception with just 1:32 on the clock as Calgary suffered its fourth loss on the year.

“Whenever you are running an offence, it needs to be well-oiled,” said Cornish. “If there’s one person that messes up on a play, that can kill a drive. I think there are several opportunities for players to sort of mess up, and it just sort of accumulates. And the drives that we could have had didn’t work out.”

The low-scoring affair marked the Stamps’ first home loss since last season’s five-point defeat in early November at the hands of the Blue Bombers. While an undefeated record at McMahon Stadium was highly desired, Cornish is not about to lose confidence in the Red and White moving forward.

“It’s just like last year,” the star tailback explained, who also ran in a two-point conversion before the half. “Sometimes you need a loss late (in the season) to make you realize that the CFL is not easy. There’s a lot of parity around the league so for us to have this loss now, I’m hoping it allows us to sort of see we don’t have it easy. We have to work for every win that we get.”

A solid outing by the defence limited Edmonton to one touchdown as both Maleki Harris and Brandon McDonald picked off Mike Reilly. However, the offence simply was unable to put up points when it mattered most.

“We all have to be more accountable and make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to help the team win,” remarked the New Westminster, B.C, product.

The Stampeders and Eskimos will both host playoff contests next month and may have the opportunity to face off once again with a birth in the Grey Cup up for grabs.

“We left something out there,” stated No. 9. “We didn’t play our best game and I think we didn’t necessarily have as much respect for Edmonton and what they brought to the table as we should have. I think if we see them again in the playoffs, we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

The season series was at stake against their archrival opponent in Week 16, although Cornish doesn’t view the subpar outing as anything more than that.

“A loss is a loss to me,” the nine-year veteran uttered.