Bakes' Game Takes | Lions Battle Back To Take Down Riders In WSF
Jevon Cottoy and the Lions are moving on to the Western Final, following Saturday's comeback win over Saskatchewan. Photo: Paul Yates, BC Lions.
The BC Lions are heading back to the Western Final. And they accomplished step one of their journey in an almost unbelievable fashion. The home side got a couple of big, timely plays when they needed them most, overcoming a 17-3 first-half deficit to beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 33-26 in front of 23,283 fans at a raucous Save-On-Foods Field at BC Place. Now for some game takes.
It's a good thing final grades aren't tallied based on your start. The Lions had perhaps their worst since the opening month of the season. But that's what championship-calibre squads do. They punch adversity right in the mouth.
It was a fumble by James Butler on the first play from scrimmage and a turnover on downs by Zander Horvath that led to ten of the Riders' points to stake them to the two-touchdown lead.
Nathan Rourke and the Lions offence sputtered out of the gate before the tide turned on Stanley Berryhill's 69-yard-touchdown reception to get the ball rolling. Rourke stayed patient in the pocket, while Berryhill did a great job exploiting the back end of Saskatchewan's defence. You could hear the collective sigh of relief in that moment.
Trailing 17-13 at the break, the home side took the momentum all the way back in the third quarter, as Rourke connected with the YAC master, Jevon Cottoy, on two occasions, first to tie the game at 20 and the second one put them on top for the first time on the day.
The ending wasn't without drama, as a Sean Whyte field goal miss kept it a seven-point lead for the Lions with just over a minute to play before they hung on. Cottoy and company will savour it for a few hours before getting back to work.
"Yeah, just sticking to the process, you know that Buck has been calling the entire week. It's playoff ball. Saskatchewan is a great team," said Cottoy on the comeback effort.
"They were (defending) Grey Cup champs, right? So they're going to bring their best. Obviously, we expect to start off a lot faster, but again, it's playoffs. It's ups and downs and at halftime, we just really just rallied, making sure everyone just believed in one another, and came out victorious in that second half."
"I think we've been in these situations before. We understand the outcome of this game. We understand the parameters behind playoff football," added Buck Pierce.
"It's do your job, man to man, do your job, and go out there and do what we know how to do. That's what we've been doing all year. It's a resilient group, maybe more resilient than any other group I've been a part of in terms of understanding where we are and how we need to respond and I think that's a belief in everybody. And you know, I think more than anything, it was just relaying that message once again."
The Lions' defence managed to battle through, holding the Riders to just one touchdown by Tommy Stevens. The rest of their points came from six Brett Lauther field goals. A nice statement by the elite unit led by Mike Benevides. Mathieu Betts and Hayden Harris each had sacks on Trevor Harris, while Robert Carter Jr's diving interception snuffed out some of the Saskatchewan momentum early. Harris still managed 29 completions on 40 attempts for 309 yards. The Riders possessed the ball for 18 minutes of the opening half. At the end of the day, it was going to take a lot of grinding to take down the defending champs. Rourke was thankful for his defence bailing them out.
"I mean, they've been incredible all year. There are a lot of games; the one that comes to mind right away is the Toronto game in Toronto, a game where it's a weird feeling walking on the field. You don't feel like you did enough to win, but you did, and you kind of feel like you just got away with highway robbery," said the quarterback.
"And they've done that so many times this year. So many studs on that defence, that side of the ball. Coach Bene and the rest of his staff did an incredible job turning it around, really. I mean, I think early in the year, I think there were a lot of people from the outside pointing fingers at our guys, specifically, you know, Bene and I think they did a really good job handling it, rising to the challenge, and playing really good football, especially when we needed it. And honestly, I didn't think that at times offensively we executed the way we did. Particularly myself, those last four plays of offence are not our greatest, but our defence was able to win it for us. And that's a testament to how great they've been and how crucial they've been to this football team."
It's never going to be an easy road. Now they get to test themselves against the team that led the division throughout the regular season.
Key Stats
452- the Lions churned out over 400 yards in net offence, a bulk of them coming on the plays to Cottoy, Berryhill and a first-half run by Zander Horvath to set up a field goal for their first points of the game.
366- Rourke's passing yards were a career-high in his fifth playoff game.
131- receiving yards for Cottoy, his longest catch going for 70 yards on his first major.
33:34- the final time of possession for the losing side in this contest. Never count out the big-play ability for Rourke.
1/3- both teams were an uncharacteristic one-for-three in red zone opportunities.
7-0- The Lions remain unbeaten all-time at home in the Western Semi-Final, beating the Bombers in 1977, 1986 and 2016 and Calgary in 2022, 2023 and 2025 before this afternoon.
Next Up
For the first time since 1988, the Lions will travel to Edmonton for the West Division Final. Kickoff next Saturday is at 3:30 pm at Commonwealth Stadium. These teams split two regular season meetings, with the Lions prevailing 36-24 in Touchdown Kelowna in week five and the Elks squeaking out a 19-17 win in Edmonton in week seven.