REDBLACKS OVER AND OUT
Riders kill hopes of Grey Cup repeat
In a morgue-like locker-room moments after their football season had come crashing to a halt, the Ottawa Redblacks tried to explain what went wrong. The words didn’t come easily, there were some freshly moist eyes.
On a day when the Redblacks needed to be at their very best, they were anything but in a 31-20 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League East Division semifinal at TD Place. Maybe it was the perfect way to finish off a CFL season filled with far too much inconsistency — five months of untimely blunders.
On Sunday, the Roughriders were by far the better team and will play the Toronto Argonauts Nov. 19 in the division final.
“We didn’t have enough, we didn’t have what it takes to win,” said Redblacks receiver/returner Diontae Spencer, who caught nine passes for 157 yards and a touchdown. “It’s a tough loss, man. You prepare, you want to win a Grey Cup — we came up short.”
The statistics, which shockingly favour Ottawa, don’t tell the story.
Ottawa quarterback Trevor Harris completed 37 of 60 passes for an eye-popping 457 yards, but had some bad tosses among those and was intercepted twice. Saskatchewan’s Kevin Glenn was 18 of 28 for 252 yards, making the big completions when his team needed them.
Ottawa’s William Powell didn’t get much of a chance to do what he’s been so good at for the past several weeks — he had just eight carries for 50 yards. Saskatchewan’s Marcus Thigpen was superb, carrying the ball 15 times for 169 yards, including a 75-yard sprint for a touchdown.
The Redblacks had four turnovers (two interceptions, a fumble and another on a failed third-down gamble).
“We turned the ball over twice on their side of the field, that’s a killer,” said coach Rick Campbell. “The turnover thing is hard to overcome. We never found a way to make big plays in the key moments of the game. I’m giving the other team credit. I like to think when we win, we did something well.
“There’s a lot of good here, even though it doesn’t seem like it after you lose a tough playoff game. We’re going to be disappointed for now. Even though it doesn’t seem like it right now, I’m thinking the sun will rise (Monday).”
Asked to assess Harris’s performance, the coach said: “I know he would say he’d want to play better. Our whole football team needed to play a bit better. Football’s a team game and everybody can make each other look good. We didn’t make ourselves look good today.”
Asked about his team’s defence, which was especially shaky in the first half, Campbell said: “There were times where we needed to get off the field and we didn’t.”
“We just weren’t good enough,” said defensive back Sherrod Baltimore. “This really hurts, I don’t even know what to say. I’m going to remember how this feels, it’s a chip on my shoulder.”
“I feel like we were the better team,” said defensive back Jonathan Rose. “But in times like this when you get into the playoffs, it’s one game, one shot — you get one chance. You can’t have lapses.”
“We were a little rusty defensively,” said defensive back Antoine Pruneau. “They played better than us, but we didn’t play like ourselves. Personally, I think I had to do a better job.”
The Roughriders grabbed some early momentum with Bakari Grant catching a 29-yard touchdown pass from Glenn 2:24 into the game.
The Redblacks quickly responded. After Spencer returned the kickoff 37 yards (he was tripped up by Saskatchewan kicker Tyler Crapigna), he snagged a 56-yard touchdown pass from Harris. The Redblacks were successful with the twopoint convert pass to Juron Criner, who had 11 catches for 102 yards.
The Riders made it 14-8 on a Glenn quarterback sneak.
Ottawa marched down to the Saskatchewan 10-yard line, but a bad decision by Harris resulted in an interception by Saskatchewan’s Samuel Eguavoen. The Redblacks let another good scoring opportunity get away when Greg Ellingson, who later left the game with a knee injury, dropped a well-thrown deep ball by Harris close to the Saskatchewan end zone.
The Roughriders made it 21-8 with 4 ½ minutes left in the first half when Vernon Adams Jr. pushed his way into the end zone on a third-down quarterback sneak.
Pushing for yards on a thirddown gamble, Redblacks quarterback Ryan Lindley fumbled and it was picked up by Saskatchewan’s Mike Edem.
The Redblacks got a 22-yard field goal from Brett Maher after Keelan Johnson forced a fumble (recovered by Serderius Bryant) on a punt return.
The Riders broke it open as Thigpen found a gaping hole and sped 75 yards into the Ottawa end zone.
A 29-yard Maher field goal made it 28-14, but the Riders got the three points back with a 31-yarder from Crapigna. A third-down gamble deep in Saskatchewan territory late in the game failed.
Criner scored a touchdown with 1:47 left. Maher missed the convert.
Offensive lineman SirVincent Rogers said there was no quit in his teammates.
“I’m proud of our guys, I love these guys,” he said. “Everybody fought. I didn’t see one guy flinching regardless of the score. Not one guy was out there with the mindset that we were going to lose that game. We always have the hope and believe that we’re going to win, whether we’re up 20 or down 20. We came up short and it hurts. Credit Sask, they played a good game.”