Lions down Alouettes
Johnson, Lulay lead the charge in B.C. victory
MONTREAL — Backup quarterback Travis Lulay ran in a touchdown with 2:43 left to play to snap a tie and lift the B.C. Lions to a 23-16 victory over the Montreal Alouettes in Canadian Football League play Thursday night.
Jeremiah Johnson scored a pair of touchdowns and Ty Long added a field goal for the Lions (2-1), who stayed east and practised in Kingston, Ont., this week with only six days since their victory last Friday in Toronto.
Tyrell Sutton had a TD and Boris Bede kicked three field goals for Montreal (1-2), which has lost their last four meetings against the Lions. The Montreal attack under new quarterback Darian Durant has yet to put up 20 points in a game.
New CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie was among the 18,728 at Percival Molson Stadium to watch the teams struggle to 6-6 tie in an uneventful first half and reach only a 9-6 score by the end of the third quarter.
B.C. started out on fire, with Jonathon Jennings leading an 11-play, 81-yard drive capped by a nine-yard touchdown pass to Johnson 5:30 into the game. The two-point convert attempt failed and the Lions didn’t threaten to score the rest of the half.
Montreal needed three possessions to get a first down, but Durant began moving the ball in the second quarter. A long completion to B.J. Cunningham with a roughing the passer call put the ball on the B.C. 30. Three plays later, Bede was good from 29 yards at 7:42.
A 31-yard completion to Ernest Jackson helped set up Bede’s 51-yard field goal at 13:24.
A successful Lions challenge for pass interference that wiped out a Montreal interception by Tyree Hollins seemed to ignite the B.C. attack as Jennings took the ball 73 yards on 13 plays, but they settled for Long’s 13-yard field goal at 12:26 of the third.
Montreal marched back and Bede tied it at 9-9 with a 45-yard boot 34 seconds into the fourth.
A pass interference call in the end zone against Hollins gave B.C. the ball on the one and Johnson ran it in at 3:35.
The Alouettes came back to the B.C. five, but it looked to be for naught when Tony Burnett picked off a pass and ran it all the way back, only to have it nullified by a pass interference call behind the play against Ronnie Yell. Montreal got the ball on the two, where Sutton ran it in at 7:35.
B. C. answered straight back, helped by a 37-yard catch by Shaquille Johnson.