Clan beats Humboldt in wild-ride matchup

The playoffs aren’t in the picture this season for the Simon Fraser Clan, but the local NCAA Div. 2 football team is playing with such joyful abandon down the stretch drive of its third Great Northwest Athletic Conference season, you’d have a hard time believing they weren’t playing for something extra special.

On Saturday, as low clouds engulfed Burnaby Mountain over its Terry Fox Field and the rains pelted for a full four quarters, Simon Fraser rode its own version of the PNE roller-coaster, digging a hellish hole, climbing back out and then needing another rally, capped by a herculean touchdown from star receiver Lemar Durant to upset the conference-leading Humboldt State Lumberjacks 41-37.

The Clan, incredibly, scored 34 straight points after falling behind 24-0, then fell behind again and needed a Durant touchdown with 4:06 remaining to pull out the victory.

“Character counts, character matters,” SFU head coach Dave Johnson said after a win that saw his team reach 4-5 in the GNAC (5-5 overall) with a road finale next Saturday in Los Angeles at Azusa Pacific.

“At halftime it was a bleak equation,” Johnson said.

Yet, somehow, the Clan found a way to make the numbers add up in their favour, dropping Humboldt to 6-3 (7-3 overall).

SFU, now in its third GNAC season, has won four of its last six games, all in the conference. Prior to that, the team was 5-19 overall.

For a more complete version of this story, look for the University tab at provincesports.com