Football: CW recap - Huskies bite back, Rams keep rolling

It's officially the midway point of the season, and with four weeks in the books things are starting to become more clear out west. While Regina's early season success has certainly been surprising to some, the Rams continued to prove they're for real this weekend on the West Coast.

The Rams' potent offence was on full display yet again this weekend in Vancouver where Regina pounded the ball against the UBC Thunderbirds, to the tune of 241 yards on the ground in a 41-6 shellacking.

Fifth-year running back Adrian Charles accounted for 193 of those rushing yards, including a 90-yard run touchdown run in the second quarter - Charles' second major of the game (that run was the second longest in Regina history behind only Ronald Arnold's 97-yarder back in 2000).

The Rams also had a little trickery in the playbook for the T-Birds when punter Chris Bodnar hooked up with Matt Yousie on a fake punt for a 73-yard TD in the fourth.

Turnovers were a problem for the T-Birds, as QB Billy Greene threw a quartet of interceptions. The UBC offensive attack was abysmal at best, with the home side unable to get the ball inside the Regina red zone once all afternoon.

It was a thoroughly dominant victory for the Rams who continue to look good. QB Marc Mueller was solid, going 16 of 27 for 186 yards throwing a TD and no interceptions, with the ground game doing more than enough to get the win.

In Edmonton Friday night the Saskatchewan Huskies showed why, despite their 1-2 record entering the week, the talk leading up to their clash with the Alberta Golden Bears revolved around how they were poised to wake up from their early season funk.

That's exactly what Brian Towriss' team did, coming out and taking it to the Bears at Foote Field in a 33-9 dismantling of the Bears.

Despite coming into the game with some doubt as to his health, Saskatchewan's Laurence Nixon turned in a QB performance for the ages going 25 of 34 with no interceptions, three touchdowns and 423 yards through the air.

Nixon's favourite target under the Foote Field lights was big play specialist Jade Etienne, who had 171 yards including touchdowns of 53 and 41 yards respectively.

On the other side of the QB battle, Alberta starter Julian Marchand and the offence struggled for the second consecutive week, with Marchand throwing three interceptions, and the offence's only major score coming late in the fourth thanks to backup Curtis Dell's 12-yard pass to a wide open Jess Valleau.

After a 2-0 start the Bears have seemingly come back to Earth with back-to-back home losses, but remain in a tie for second with the Huskies who appear to be back on track.

In the final Canada West game of the weekend Calgary downed the Manitoba Bisons, just not in the fashion many experts had expected, eking out a 26-25 win in Winnipeg.

Down 20-3 at the half, Manitoba came out and scored on consecutive possessions to open the second half with QB Khaleal Williams throwing for the Bisons first major, and running in their second.

Those scores made it 20-17 for the Dinos with more than a quarter of football to go.

Calgary would add a safety, an Aaron Ifield field goal and rouge to round out there scoring.

The Bisons would get their final score thanks to Matt Henry scoring with only 25 seconds to go in the fourth to make the game 26-25 including a successful two-point convert, but it was too little too late.

The big story for Calgary was once again their potent rushing attack with rookie QB Eric Dzwilewski at the helm. Dzwilewski wasn't great through the air going 11 of 18 with a pick, but rushed for 114 yards. Steven Lumbala also had 106 yards on the ground, not to mention Matt Walter's 137 yard performance. Talk about a three-headed rushing monster, with the trio combining for 357 yards.

It wasn't the second half Calgary was looking for, but it was just enough to run their record to 3-1, good for a tie atop the standings with Regina, while Manitoba fell to 1-3.
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