Football: CW recap - Dogs now in the drivers seat

Out west we now know who the four playoff teams will be - Saskatchewan, Calgary, Regina and Alberta - but what order the top three squads will finish in has yet to be answered with one week to go in the regular season.

Dinos do it again to Rams

In Regina Friday night the Rams played host to the Calgary Dinos, and with the opportunity to finish first in the conference very much in their hands with two weeks to go, the Rams fell flat against the Dinos after falling behind early in an eventual 35-27 loss.

Both teams came out slow in the first quarter, before the #7 ranked Dinos erupted for 23 second quarter points compared to a measly three from Regina. Calgary would head into the half with a 24-3 lead and that would prove insurmountable for the #3 ranked Rams.

Regina made things interesting with 16 fourth quarter points, but that wouldn't be enough as Calgary picked up their second win in as many tries against the Rams.

Matt Walter led the way offensively for the Dinos with 158 yards rushing, along with Aaron Ifield who was good on all four of his FG tries.

One has to wonder if this Calgary team has the ability to turn it on at the right time after looking mediocre at times during the course of the regular season. They've put themselves in a position to finish in first if they take care of business next week against Alberta coupled with a Regina win.

Erik Glavic is back under centre, and with a team that was expected to challenge again for the Hardy Cup, maybe a big win over Regina is the beginning of the best for the Dinos.

Huskies stay hot

After a 1-2 start to the season, the Saskatchewan Huskies are now amongst the hottest teams in the nation after their fourth consecutive win thanks to a convincing 30-9 victory in Vancouver over UBC.

The boxscore makes it look like another ho-hum win for the Huskies, but Saskatchewan did turn the ball over three times.

UBC though was stagnant on offence, especially on the ground where they rushed for a measly 42 yards.

Saskatchewan quarterback Laurence Nixon had an up and down day, throwing for 330 yards and a touchdown, but also turned the ball over three times - two interceptions, and a fumble.

It wasn't the most polished win of the season for the Huskies, but their defence got the job done limiting the T-Birds to 280 yards of total offence.

With the win the Huskies now find themselves in a tie for first place in the conference.

The Sled Dogs have the opportunity to finish first with a win this coming weekend against Regina regardless of what Calgary does since the Huskies own the tiebreaker versus the Dinos by way of their two wins over the boys from the Stampede City.

Saskatchewan has outscored their opponents a combined 163-38 over the course of their four-game winning streak - that works out to a margin of victory north of 31 points per game. Needless to say, the Huskies that lost two straight early this season are part of ancient history.

Bears punch playoff ticket

Despite a tight game at the half - 16-14 in favour of Alberta - it was all Golden Bears in the second 30 minutes, outscoring the Manitoba Bisons 30-7 in the final two quarters to lift the Green and Gold to a 46-21 win and a playoff berth.

Matt Jarvis was the story for Alberta, rushing for 205 yards in his final game as a member of the Bears at Foote Field, adding two touchdowns to go out a winner on his home turf after five-years as a member of the program.

The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Bears, pushing their record to 3-4.

In a game they had to have - to stop what had been an abysmal stretch of games, along with securing a playoff spot - the Bears struggling offence managed to put up over 500 yards, and five major scores to get out of a funk that had seen them put up only four offensive scores in the previous four weeks.

Alberta will finish in fourth regardless of the outcome of the games next week, and head to Calgary to take on the Dinos - a tough task given the Bears struggles against their provincial rivals over the last several seasons.
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1 comment:

  1. While it's still too many, the Huskies only turned the ball over 3 times, not 5.

    ReplyDelete