On a night where the Saskatchewan Roughriders celebrated their 1989 Grey Cup victory, they had their game against the Montreal Alouettes come down to a last-second field goal for the win.
Like Dave Ridgway in 1989, Brett Lauther hit a field goal in the game’s dying seconds for a victory as the Riders improved to 8-4 on the season with a 27-25 victory.
Before the kick, the usually reliable Lauther struggled as he missed a 33-yard field goal and a point after. After the game, Lauther said he owed his teammates for the misses and that he came on to the field knowing he could not miss the potential game-winner.
“I need to make that one, especially after I put us in a bad spot earlier. I just needed to execute like I knew I could,” Lauther said. “I’m gonna miss more field goals this year. If you don’t move on it’s always going to be dwelling on you and putting your team in a bad spot. I just moved on and I knew I could make that one at the end.”
It was the second time Lauther had ended a game with a field goal as he also did so against Winnipeg to win the Labour Day Classic.
For quarterback Cody Fajardo, he engineered a game-winning drive for the 3rd time this season and said as the just over 30-thousand filed out of Mosaic Stadium that there was a sense of familiarity going into the game-winning drive.
“If we keep doing this, we’ll say that we’ve been in this position before and that’s what helped us in a situation like that,” Fajardo said. “We know we’ve done it before as an offensive unit. We’ve got an opportunity in the same situation to go down and kick a field goal or even get a single and we tie this game up and go to overtime.”
The Riders now go on their third and final bye week of the season with their next game being in Toronto on September 28. After that contest, they will play their final five games against Western Division opponents including two against Edmonton with one each against Calgary and Winnipeg.
NOTES:
- Head Coach Craig Dickenson revealed after the game Charleston Hughes has elbow and knee problems which led to him being a late scratch on Friday. Hughes went into the weekend leading the CFL in sacks at 13.
- The Riders won their 5th in a row at home which is something they haven’t done since 2010.
- William Powell ran for one touchdown and caught another. Powell has now run for 10 touchdowns this season with the receiving touchdown being his first and the 5th of his career.
- Despite the loss, Montreal quarterback Vernon Adams threw for 344 yards
