By Mitchell Blair
For Riderville.com

The Saskatchewan Roughriders let a golden chance slip through their fingers as they couldn’t capitalize on some early mistakes and ended up losing 35-20 to the B.C Lions in what was another bizarre football game between the two teams this season.

  The Lions turned the ball over in their first three possessions, but the Riders offence could not make B.C pay for those turnovers. In fact, the game was tied at 7 after one quarter.

  Perhaps the biggest play of the night and the strangest play came in the final seconds of the first half. With the Riders leading 14-12, B.C’s Sean Whyte had to punt from deep in his territory making one believe the visiting team would at least get a shot at a Luca Congi field goal if not more. However, Gerran Walker tried to make a sliding catch of the punt and had it bounce off his body. The ball was legally kicked down the field by a member of the Lions and it ended up bouncing perfectly into the hands of Lions receiver O’Neil Wilson who scored what had to be the wildest touchdown the CFL has seen in years.
 
 That play seemed to take the fire out of the Riders, but they hung in there until the bitter end as they scored late to cut the deficit to 28-20, but a blocked convert followed by an unsuccessful short kick was the final nail in the Saskatchewan coffin.

  When it was all over, a frustrated head coach spoke to 620 CKRM’s Carm Carteri.
  “We had a little bit of everything go wrong.” Ken Miller said. “We didn’t move the football consistently on offence, we didn’t stop them very well on defence, and then we had some critical breakdowns in our kicking game.”

  Defensive back Eddie Davis was also harsh with the team’s performance.
    “This was a tough one,” Davis said. “B.C pretty much had the ball for the whole game. We couldn’t get them off the field and offence kept going two and out, and we made mistakes on special teams. It was just one of those nights.

 Davis also agreed on the fact that the Wilson touchdown off the fumbled punt was definitely the turning point of the football game.
 “That’s what they were looking for,” Davis said. “They needed a big play to give them a spark and once that play happened, everything cascaded for them.

 A win by the Riders would have left B.C in a serious hole, but the Lions instead of being in that hole have tightened up the West as they now sit at 2-4 while the Riders are 3-3. Miller knows they had an opportunity to knock the Lions down, and instead let them off the canvas.
 ““We gave them an opportunity to have some life again.” Miller declared. ”We’re a better football team than we showed tonight, but we’re not making excuses. They played well.”
 The team returns home and gets ready for their next battle which will be at Mosaic Stadium. The surprising Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be in Regina for a game Sunday August 16 starting at 5 o’clock.


NOTES:
•    Rob Bagg had two of the three Rider touchdowns on the night. They were the first two of his CFL career.
•    Chris Szarka’s TD places him in a tie for 4th all-time in franchise history. His one yard plunge in the 4th quarter gives him 28 career touchdowns which ties him with the great Ron Lancaster, Mike Saunders and Ken Carpenter. George Reed is the franchise leader in touchdowns with 134.
•    B.C. coach Wally Buono is now three victories away from passing Don Matthews’ CFL record for most wins which stands at 231.