The Canadian Press
Lisa Wallace
OTTAWA–The Ottawa Redblacks finally earned a victory.
Now they want to build off of it.
Ottawa ended a four-game winless streak with a 24-19 win over the Montreal Alouettes (2-3) last night at TD Place.
As usual, the Redblacks (1-3-1) didn’t make things easy on themselves as they allowed the Alouettes to attempt a comeback in the second half.
But unlike previous games, they were able to hold onto the lead to pick up their first win of the season.
Trevor Harris was 29-of-41 passing for 376 yards with two TDs while Montreal’s Darian Durant was 35-for-45 for 452 yards, along with two TDs and two interceptions.
“It’s good but we’ve got to keep it in perspective, it’s one win,” stressed Harris.
“I really think this is a win that can kind of catapult a team as we found a way to win late as opposed to finding a way to lose,” he added.
The play of the game came with just over one minute left when Ottawa’s defence held off the Alouettes on third-and-one at the Redblacks’ eight-yard line, sending the sell-out crowd of 24,756 into a frenzy.
“That was a huge play,” said Redblacks’ DB Antoine Pruneau.
“I knew when we were on the field that our guys wanted it more, and every single guy pushed hard and won their individual battle and we got the job done.”
All week, Redblacks’ head coach Rick Campbell’s message had been about finding ways to make big plays and force the other team to make more mistakes.
And last night, Ottawa was able to take advantage with fumble recoveries and interceptions.
Montreal had four turnovers in the first half alone.
“That was the difference,” said Campbell. “Our defence has been solid in long stretches, but was lacking that momentum-changing play and [Wednesday], I would guess we had five turnovers, off the top of my head.
“And when you do that, it’s a big lift for the football team,” he reasoned. “So I credit our guys for making those big plays.”
Trailing 17-3 the Alouettes pushed back hard in the third quarter.
Durant connected with Tiquan Underwood for a 51-yard touchdown pass and Nic Lewis for a four-yard TD.
But Ottawa replied with a touchdown of its own as Brad Sinopoli hauled in a short pass to lead 24-18 heading into the fourth quarter.
With 14:12 left in the third quarter, Lewis became just the fourth player in CFL history to record his 1,000th reception on a nine-yard gain.
“It’s an awesome feeling to be able to reach that milestone and just still be here 14 years later,” said Lewis.
The Redblacks were able to cap off a solid first half with an 18-yard field goal by Brett Maher in the final minute to take a 17-3 lead into the break.
Slow starts have been an issue for the Alouettes so far this season–and this night was no different.
“We took points off the board with those [first-half] turnovers,” noted Durant.
“When you get a chance to score touchdowns, you have to do that and we didn’t do it in the first half,” he said.
“We turned the ball over.”
The game marked the third of four in a stretch of 17 days for the Redblacks, with the last being played this coming Monday in Toronto.
CFL commissioner and former player Randy Ambrosie was in attendance yesterday and admitted to having some concern with Ottawa’s schedule.
“As a player, I would have found it very difficult to play three games in 11 days, particularly in the back third of my career when just getting out of bed after one game was hard enough, much less that many games in a short turn,” Ambrosie said when he spoke to media at halftime.
“This is a very intense game, played by these very large human beings,” he noted.
“I think it’s too many games in too few nights.”
Ambrosie went on to say that next season, he would do his best to make the schedule as fair and safe for all teams involved.
