The Eskimos celebrated equipment manager Dwayne Mandrusiak’s 1,000th CFL game with a few achievements of their own Friday night.
They posted their fifth consecutive win to start a season for the first time since 2011 as quarterback Mike Reilly threw for 412 yards and two touchdowns to knock off the B.C. Lions 37-26 at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
“To be able to do it for Dwayne was pretty awesome,” said 32-year-old fullback Calvin McCarty, who has been with the team for 11 seasons.
Mandrusiak received the impromptu Gatorade bucket shower at midfield after the game, a custom usually reserved for championship-winning coaches.
Edmonton also had three receivers record 100-yard performances, including Brandon Zylstra for a fourth time this year, while defensive end Odell Willis had two quarterback sacks to give him 84 in his CFL career and move into the league’s all-time Top 20. Rookie cornerback Arjen Colquhoun and safety Neil King also made their first interceptions of the season to shut down B.C. drives in the Eskimos end during the second quarter.
The injury-riddled Esks did all that despite suffering even more injuries throughout the CFL game.
“I don’t know how many guys are injured in there,” said Eskimos coach Jason Maas, nodding towards the locker room. “There’s quite a few of them. … At the end of the game, we had so many guys playing different positions it’s ridiculous, yet we somehow come out and play that well in front of our home fans, which was a great crowd, loud as can be, supporting us, believing in us.
“I’ve been part of football for 30 years and this is the grittiest (team) I’ve ever seen. That many guys go down. We don’t have a kicker, a punter for a good part of the second half and to be able to grind out a great football team is pretty impressive. I’ve never been a part of anything like this before. I’m very proud of our locker room right now.”
With their second victory over the Lions, the Eskimos clinched the season series with one more game still to come in October. B.C. is the only West Division opponent Edmonton has played this year.
The Esks are back at Commonwealth Stadium for a rematch against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4.
Reilly threw a deep pass down the right sideline on the first offensive play of the game, hooking up with rookie wide receiver Duke Williams for a 65-yard pass-and-run effort. It was the first time this season the Eskimos offence has had the ball to start a game.
“The first throw of the game, I thought I was going to have to put a little extra on it so I ripped it,” Reilly said. “Halfway up, I thought it was going to go past him. I was a little nervous, but Duke put on the after-burners and made a great play.”
The Eskimos decided to go deep on their first offensive play in an attempt to ignite their slow-starting offence.
“It set the tone for the game for us,” Maas said. “It got our fans excited right off the bat and we finished that drive with a score (Zylstra’s 14-yard touchdown catch), so it was a great start to the game, finally.”
The Eskimos went up 17-3 after Vidal Hazelton broke the club record with a 108-yard scoring play 3-1/2 minutes into the second quarter right after Colquhoun’s interception at the Edmonton two-yard line for a huge momentum swing. Hazelton was wide open when he caught the ball at the Edmonton 45, but ended up having to push off of B.C. linebacker Chandler Fenner to make it into the end zone.
“I haven’t seen a touchdown pass that long since I’ve been playing here,” Reilly said. “But Fenner is pretty dang fast. I was looking at the JumboTron telling (offensive lineman) Danny Groulx we just scored a 108-yard touchdown and then I saw Fenner come into the screen and Vidal is not slow. That was a great play by him just to catch up.”
Hazelton, who finished with eight catches for 159 yards, saw Fenner coming and knew he was “running out of gas,” so he tried to stiff-arm the B.C. player and was able to stumble into the end zone.
The Lions scored a touchdown late in the first half to cut their deficit to 20-10, then tied the score with a field goal and TD early in the third quarter.
“B.C. has done a great job the last couple of weeks of putting up huge numbers and our guys were able to hold them for most of the night,” Reilly said. “We have an incredible defensive line that gets a lot of pressure. It’s not fun playing against those guys in practice every day.”
Eskimos defensive tackle Euclid Cummings was disappointed that the defence didn’t play up to its potential for the entire game, but Lions QB Travis Lulay was limited to 259 passing yards after exceeding the 400-yard mark each of his first two games this year.
Chris Edwards got the Esks back on track by returning a kickoff 86 yards to the Lions’ 19-yard-line. Edmonton settled for Sean Whyte’s third field goal of the game midway through the third quarter to take a 23-20 lead they would never relinquish.
The Esks offence, which had already put together three game-winning drives in the fourth quarter this season, faced a different challenge after punter/kicker Whyte was hurt.
“It’s interesting offensively being on your own 20-yard-line knowing you can’t punt because you don’t have a kicker so you better march down and score,” said Reilly, who was forced to play three-down football the rest of the game. “We found a way to make it work.”
Not having a kicker meant gambling on third down and going for two-point converts at the other end of the field, but it worked because Reilly was able to score twice on one-yard plunges in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.
McCarty got a rare chance to carry the ball, plowing for 45 yards on 11 carries after running back Travon Van was injured late in the first quarter. It marked the second time in as many seasons that McCarty has been the prime ball carrier in a game, having rushed 11 times for 46 yards and a touchdown last year at Toronto.
“They call it, we haul it,” McCarty quipped.
With Van out of the game, Zylstra took over punt-return duties while long-snapper Ryan King (until he was injured) and Willis booted kickoffs in Whyte’s absence.
Reilly’s perfect season without an interception ended late in the first quarter after 148 passes. He had also gone 219 passes over seven games dating back to last season without giving up a pick.
“Tonight was just a case of a missed throw,” he said afterwards.
Reilly also gave up a ‘pick on a two-point convert attempt in the fourth quarter.
“He threw about four or five (interceptions) in practice this week so we kind of knew something was going to give,” Maas said.
EXTRA POINTS:
- The Eskimos, who have scored only 23 more points than they’ve allowed this year, are the first CFL team to start a season 5-0 with a cumulative points for/against margin of less than 30 points. The Ottawa Rough Riders were plus-30 in 1949.
- By completing 24 of 33 passes, Reilly passed Tom Wilkinson and Warren Moon on Friday to move into second place for most career completions with the Eskimos
- The Eskimos’ previous longest passing play was 105 yards from Ray to Jason Tucker against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2005.