It was deja vu all over again for the Regina Rams Friday night who faded late in their 21-17 loss to the UBC Thunderbirds at Leibel Field, jeopardizing their once promising playoff hopes.
Five weeks after blowing a 10 point halftime lead to the T-Birds in Vancouver, the Rams blew an eight point halftime lead to UBC in Regina this time to drop to 3-4 and might need to win their final game in Manitoba just to qualify for the postseason.
Rams head coach Mark McConkey was in no mood to kick his boys when they were down after the loss.
"I'm proud of the guys," McConkey said. "They fought hard and at the end of the day, (UBC) is a really good football team."
"They're one of the top teams in Canada West. We had them and hurt ourselves and kind of lost the game with missed blocks, dropped passes and missed throws. We couldn't stop them on that last drive. We've got to do a better job of executing."
The Rams, who haven't had a win at home over UBC since 2017, battled a windy wet night at Leibel Field in their final home game of the season.
U-of-R linebacker Owen Zimmer came through with five tackles and a quarterback sack and doesn't think the Rams played all that badly.
"This was a well fought battle," Zimmer said. "We got caught in some really unfortunate situations and special teams errors near the end of the game but they're a good football team.
"I think all of our games we've lost were by one score or right around there. We're right there. We've just got to put the final nail in the coffin and going into halftime with the lead, we've just got to find a way to preserve that.
The Rams got points from kicker Ty Gorniak nailing two field goal tries including a second half kick from just over 44 yards out, matching his career long, though he did clank a short one off an upright.
Regina scored four of their points off of two UBC conceded safety touches in addition to an Owen Sieben touchdown pass to Kaiden Banfield which put the Rams into the driver's seat going into the second half.
The Rams next action is one week from Saturday for a halloween visit to Winnipeg to face the Manitoba Biosns in the regular season finale for both teams.
