Eskimos defeat Bombers, advance to West Division Final

A fake punt not only failed to fool the Eskimos in Sunday’s West Division semifinal, it provided the spark that turned the Edmonton offence into a roaring fire.

The Eskimos exploded for touchdowns on four consecutive possessions within less than 13 minutes in the second half to knock off the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 39-32 in front of 27,244 spectators at Investors Group Field in Winnipeg.

Edmonton’s sixth consecutive victory propelled the Green and Gold into the West Division Final against the slumping Calgary Stampeders at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at McMahon Stadium in Calgary.

“They had the best record in the league for a reason,” Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly said about the Stamps. “They’re a great football team. It’s just going to be a big-time battle.

“I don’t really look at what they did in the last three games of the season as being indicative of that football team,” he added about Calgary’s shocking three-game losing streak to complete a 13-4-1 regular season. “They didn’t have anything to play for.

“They’ve got everything to play for now, as do we. … It’s a great defence that we’re going to be playing against; they’ve been giving everybody trouble all season long. Every time we play them, even the game we won, it’s a physical, brutal game against those guys and I don’t expect it to be any different this time round.”

The Eskimos advanced to a division final for the fourth year in a row by extending Winnipeg’s Grey Cup drought to 27 years – the longest current streak without a championship for any CFL team.

The turning point in the game came when the Eskimos capitalized on the Bombers’ decision to attempt a fake punt at their own 42-yard line early in the third quarter. The Esks had just taken an 11-10 lead on Hugh O’Neill’s 66-yard punt single to open the third quarter when Winnipeg opted to gamble again. The Bombers already had been successful on three third-down, short-yardage plays in their own end of the field during the second quarter.

“The defence did a great job just to get into that situation (holding Winnipeg to seven yards on their first two plays of the second half), but then Cory (Watson) makes a heads-up play to stop them and give us the ball in their end of the field,” Reilly told the 630 CHED broadcast crew of Morley Scott and Dave Campbell on the post-game show.

Watson, an Eskimos slotback who spent his first five seasons with the Bombers, slashed into the Winnipeg backfield to tackle Timothy Flanders for a two-yard loss after he took a direct snap instead of the ball going to punter Justin Medlock.

“When that happens, you’ve got to come away with at least a field goal, but you really feel like you came up short if you don’t leave with a touchdown,” Reilly said about the turnover.

The Eskimos didn’t come up short. It took only four plays to reach the end zone, with running back C.J. Gable scoring his first of two 15-yard rushing TDs.

After Winnipeg responded with a 39-yard Medlock field goal, slotback Brandon Zylstra caught two passes for 73 yards as the Eskimos put together a lightning-quick three-play, 75-yard scoring drive. Zylstra was so wide open in the middle of the Bombers defence after catching a 12-yard pass from Reilly that he ran untouched for the final 18 yards into the end zone.

Again, Winnipeg settled for a field goal.

This time, Zylstra recovered a Gable fumble at the Edmonton 45 and Reilly followed up by hitting an uncovered Adarius Bowman for a 42-yard major, his second TD of the game.

The Eskimos weren’t finished yet. On the first play after the kickoff, safety Neil King stripped the ball away from Winnipeg receiver Weston Dressler and linebacker Kenny Ladler recovered the fumble at the Edmonton 52.

Now looking to start running out the clock, the Esks turned to Gable – who had managed only 16 rushing yards on five carries in the first half – for three consecutive runs of 10, 33 and 15 yards and another touchdown to finish off a second-half spurt where they outscored Winnipeg 29-6 to take a 39-16 lead.

“I had to make sure I wasn’t cutting so hard because there were some spots that were slippery,” Gable said.

Besides rallying for six game-winning drives in the dying minutes this season, the Eskimos have also scored in double figures in the fourth quarter in 10 of their last 11 games, outscoring opponents 144-85.

“We’re the best fourth-quarter team in the league and it’s not close,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas, whose team outscored opponents 213-116 in the final 15 minutes over the course of the entire regular season (it was the only quarter that Edmonton didn’t get outscored). “Hopefully, that trend continues.”

While the Bombers scored two unanswered touchdowns with two-point converts in the fourth quarter to make the score a little closer, their last major score came on the last play of the game.

The Eskimos tried to contain running back Andrew Harris “because 45 per cent of their offence goes through him,” said Ladler. So while Harris had six plays of 10 or more yards, he didn’t break anything longer than 17 yards and finished with 77 rushing yards on 11 carries and 43 receiving yards on four catches.

Ladler, who had a game-high 10 defensive tackles as well as knocking down a pass and recovering a fumble, also said the Edmonton defence did a good job of eliminating big plays in the pass game “for the most part … we didn’t let a curl or hitch turn into a big play.”

Rookie cornerback Arjen Colquhoun and weak-side linebacker Adam Konar both had busy games with eight defensive tackles each. Defensive ends Odell Willis and John Chick each had quarterback sacks while Kwaku Boateng (two) and Euclid Cummings had quarterback pressures. The Eskimos also knocked down five passes, including two by defensive halfback Forrest Hightower.

Winnipeg quarterback Matt Nichols passed for 371 yards, but 193 of that came after the Eskimos took their commanding 23-point lead in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, Reilly completed 23 of 33 passes for 334 yards. Zylstra, the league’s leading receiver this season, had eight catches for 156 yards while Bowman finished with three catches for 71 yards and Derel Walker had six catches for 51 yards.

“The other thing is our run game really took off in the second half,” Reilly said. “The guys up front were doing a great job blowing holes open and C.J. ran the ball extremely well.”

Gable recorded his third 100-yard rushing performance in five games with the Eskimos since being acquired from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in early October. He also had four catches for another 37 yards.

“They see what I can do and they use my full package – catching, blocking, running, everything,” said Gable, who averaged only eight carries a game with the Ticats this season. “I’m happy. Whenever my number is called, I’m going to do whatever I can to help the team out.”

Besides bulling his way past – and/or carrying on his back – as many as nine Winnipeg players for his first touchdown, Gable also leaped over a couple of Bombers defenders during the game.

“They keep going after my legs,” he said. “I’m not going to let them keep hitting my knees.”

The Eskimos – who had put only three points on the scoreboard during the first half of their two regular-season games against Winnipeg – took their first lead of the season against the Bombers when they scored on their first possession of the game. After completing passes to Zylstra, Walker and Vidal Hazleton, Reilly hit a wide-open Bowman in the back of the end zone for a 17-yard touchdown.

Unfortunately, the Eskimos had only a 28-yard Sean Whyte field goal and three punts to show for the rest of the first half as dropped passes by at least four players stalled the Edmonton offence.

“That’s not something you expect out of our receiving group,” Maas said. “But at the end of the day, they still did their jobs when it mattered the most.”

Reilly had suggested last week that the Winnipeg defence was vulnerable to big pass plays, “but you’ve got to pick and choose your moments to take them.”

“We just knew we had to clean a few things up in the second half and we were able to do it, thankfully,” he said. “We knew the opportunities were going to continue to be there. We’re just glad our defence kept it tight and kept it tied going into the locker room (at halftime), because we knew the points were there to be had.

“It’s not easy against that defence,” Reilly continued. “They do give up the yardage, but they also make you pay when you make a mistake. We were just trying not to make that big critical mistake and try to take advantage (of the Bombers defence) a couple of times when we could.”

SHORT YARDAGE: The Eskimos, who are attempting to become the first team to win the Grey Cup without playing a home game during the playoffs since the 2005 Eskimos, have won each of their last four games on the road … The Esks have had a double-digit lead during each of their last six games, all victories … With the win over the Bombers, the Eskimos have defeated every team in the CFL this season.