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September 25, 2017

About Last Night. . .

Reggie Begelton in action in Regina on Aug. 24, 2017. (Photo by Matt Smith/CFL)

Here’s a closer look at Sunday’s 15-9 Calgary Stampeders victory at new Mosaic Stadium in Regina:

Lucky 13

With the victory, the Stampeders became the first team to clinch a berth in the 2017 CFL playoffs.

It’s the 13th consecutive year the Stamps will participate in the post-season, matching the longest run in franchise history. The Stamps previously made the playoffs 13 years in a row from 1989 to 2001.

The BC Lions, who have made the playoffs every year since 1997, are the only team who carried a longer streak of playoff appearances heading into the 2017 season.

Rude guests

With their victorious effort on Sunday, the Stamps became the only team to win their first game in all five of the new CFL stadiums that have opened for business over the past five seasons – Winnipeg’s Investors Group Field, Ottawa’s extensively refurbished Frank Clair Stadium (now known as TD Place Stadium), Hamilton’s Tim Hortons Field, Toronto’s BMO Field and now Regina’s new Mosaic Stadium.

Every other CFL club has lost at least once in their debuts at the five new facilities. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are 4-1 at the new stadiums with their only loss coming at Mosaic. The Edmonton Eskimos, who have yet to play at the Riders’ new home, are 3-1.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Toronto Argonauts are 1-4 in their new stadium debuts including a loss in their own new digs. The Argos’ only victory came at Investors Group Field.

D’s digging deep

The Stamps defence continued its sterling play by holding the Roughriders to 210 yards of net offence and nine points, two of which came when the Stamps conceded a safety instead of punting from their own end zone.

Calgary has allowed just 121 points during the nine-game winning streak, an average of just 13.4 points per contest. The Stamps have held the opposition to single digits in scoring on three occasions during this stretch and only twice has the Red and White allowed more than 20 points.

The Stamps have now won seven games this season despite scoring fewer than 30 points. Calgary had just two such wins in all of 2016.

Streak update

With every “W” added to their collection, the Stamps keep tacking on to a series of streaks.

For starters, the Stamps have won nine in a row since a 2-1-1 start.

In addition, Calgary has 16 consecutive wins against West Division opponents, the longest such streak for any team in interdivisional play since 1961 when East and West first started meeting in the regular season.

In a nice piece of symmetry, during the current run of victories against the West, the Stamps are 4-0 against BC, Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg.

Finally, the Stamps pushed their run of road victories to five games. In the process, the Stamps guaranteed themselves a winning road record for an eighth consecutive season.

Five alive

With five field goals, Rene Paredes accounted for all of Calgary’s scoring on Sunday.

It’s already the third time this season Paredes has kicked five field goals in a game and he’s now done it 14 times in his career.

Paredes is now 39 for 43 on three-pointers this season for a sizzling 90.7-per cent success rate.

Sack dance

It’s shaping up to be a heckuva race for the Stamps’ team sack title.

Charleston Hughes picked up a pair of sacks to tie teammate Micah Johnson and Toronto’s Victor Butler for the league lead at eight.

Meanwhile, the defensive end on the other side of the Calgary front four – Ja’Gared Davis – had three sacks on Sunday including the all-important fumble-forcing jolt on Brandon Bridge to thwart Saskatchewan’s last-minute comeback attempt. Davis now has seven sacks on the season.

For good measure, James Vaughters has five sacks, making the Stamps the only CFL team with four players with at least five bagged QBs.

Back to Hughes, for a moment – he’s up to 96 career sacks, leaving him three shy of Will Johnson’s franchise record of 99.

Bo still flawless against Riders

Stamps QB Bo Levi Mitchell has improved his career record against Saskatchewan to 7-0.

The Roughriders are one of three teams that have never beaten Mitchell – the others are Hamilton and Toronto, who are both 0-8 against the Texan. Mitchell’s career record is now 54-8-2 for a winning percentage of .859.