The regular season opener between the Eskimos and B.C. Lions in Vancouver came down to who had the ball last, with Edmonton coming out on top 30-27.
After tying the game late in the fourth quarter with a touchdown, the Lions missed a 32-yard convert, leaving the door open for Eskimos QB Mike Reilly to throw a strike to wide receiver Brandon Zylstra which resulted in a 76-yard gain.
Kicker Sean Whyte then chipped in his third field goal of the night for the win, a nine-yarder with no time left on the clock.
Reilly completed 20 for 28 throws for 315 yards and two touchdowns, while new wideout Duke Williams put in an impressive performance recording 110 yards and a touchdown on four receptions. Running back John White had 104 yards on the ground to go along with Zylstra’s 152 yards receiving.
“The thing I love about this team is we fight until the very end,” Reilly said. “And we’ve been that way for a while now, but it was great to see the young guys really embrace that attitude and the culture that we’ve been trying to build here for a number of years. We had a lot of young guys step up and make great plays offensively, defensively, special teams; and it took a team effort to win that game, that’s a very good football team that we played against.”
It wasn’t all good news though, as star linebacker J.C. Sherritt went down favouring the lower part of his left leg at the beginning of the second quarter, and did not return to the game after being helped back to the sideline.
“It’s just a lower body injury right now,” head coach Jason Mass said.”We’ll assess it tomorrow. Hopefully we get back and hopefully get him check out by the docs and let them diagnose it correctly before we go ahead and speculate.”
The Eskimos will look to carry the momentum from the win over the Lions into their home opener at Commonwealth Stadium on Friday night with the Montreal Alouettes in Edmonton.
The Countdown to Kick-off begins at 6:30 p.m., on 630 CHED, with the kick-off at 8 p.m.
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