Bakes' Game Takes | Lions Fall Short In Western Final

The win punches the Elks' ticket to next Sunday's Grey Cup against the Montreal Alouettes. The Lions will no doubt lament this one for a long time. Now for some Game Takes.

Following a first half that was dominated by both defences, the Lions led 9-6 at the break.

From there on, three key instances led to the visitors' demise. In the opening series of the third quarter, Nathan Rourke took a sack on a 2nd and 1 that knocked them out of field goal range. Cody Fajardo and the Elks turned that opportunity into a field goal to tie the score. Later in the third, Mathieu Betts' untimely roughing the passer penalty gave Edmonton a fresh set of downs and led to Fajardo's rushing touchdown for a 16-9 Edmonton lead.

And then the third and final backbreaker: trailing 25-16 with just over five minutes to play, Justin McInnis lost a fumble, which led to a long return by J.J. Ross to set up another field goal from Vincent Blanchard to round out the scoring. The catch by McInnis looked to be short of first-down yardage, but the fumble resulted in a massive flipping of field position.

The Lions wouldn't come any closer than that. A bitter pill to swallow after it appeared they'd given themselves a real shot to get back to the Grey Cup for the first time since 2011.

Truly, no words. We didn't play to our standard today, and the better team won," said a disappointed Darnell Sankey, who led the Lion defenders with 11 tackles and a pair of sacks.

Rourke and the offence were once again slow out of the gate, but managed to pick up chunk plays when they needed them. Despite settling for only three Sean Whyte field goals in the opening 30 minutes, you could sense they were in control until that first drive of the second half ended abruptly. Like we always say: five or six plays ultimately make the difference in most of these games.

"Not good football on my part," said Rourke on that key moment.

"Buck walked me through it in the headset and you know, sometimes trying to make a play and no play there to be made. So that's something I can't do there. The biggest one for me is the great field position on Rob's return and then a three-and-out (the McInnis fumble). That's the one for me.

Rourke finished the game 22/39 for 328 yards and rushed for the Lions' only major of the game. They knew they were in for a battle against the CFL's stingiest defence. But they will think about these missed opportunities for a while.

"You know, they're a great football team, very well coached," added Sankey.

"I don't think it was really much they did. I just think it was us. You know, we had some bad penalties, really bad missed tackles, misplays. We didn't execute in all three phases of the game. I mean, when you don't execute against a good team, I mean, that's what happens. So, yeah, honestly, yeah, no words other than that, really."

As for carrying the burden of the longest Grey Cup appearance drought in the CFL, Rourke had this to say.

"It's tough. I mean, you always want to be a part of the group that gets over that hump. I know a lot of guys feel the same way, we want to win and we want to we want to win for the city of Vancouver and the province of BC and we know we haven't done in a while,and it's frustrating to be back in this position again."

Those thoughts will be echoed by many within the organization.

Key Stats

34:47- Once again, the Lions' opponent owned the time of possession. This time, it cost them.

1/4- The Lions only capitalized on one red zone opportunity, failing to score majors on three others,

72- The Lions were once again held to under 100 yards rushing as a team. Rourke and Horvath tied for the team lead with 32 yards apiece.

85- Edmonton's Austin Mack led all receivers in yardage and caught a big fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Fajardo.

84- In addition to throwing for 274 yards, Fajardo led all rushers in this contest with 84 on the ground.

Next Up

The Edmonton Elks and Montreal Alouettes meet in next Sunday's 113th Grey Cup from Calgary's McMahon Stadium. Kickoff is at 3:30 pm PT.