MONTREAL– The BC Lions are officially back in the business of winning in what was perhaps their most impressive victory of this rollercoaster that is the 2024 season. William Stanback rushed for a season-high 128 yards and a big third-quarter touchdown while the 7-6-0 BC Lions also got majors from David Mackie, Nathan Rourke and Ayden Eberhardt in Friday’s 37-23 win over the 10-2 Montreal Alouettes in front of a sold-out crowd at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium. The Lions escape Montreal with a second consecutive victory and are back above the .500 mark for the first time. Now for some game takes.
After a brilliant start and opening touchdown drive that saw David Mackie rumble for 23 yards to the house, the Lions let Montreal hang around thanks in large part to four turnovers.
Those miscues led to no less than 13 of Montreal’s points. And that’s when Stanback broke out. His 38-yard brushing touchdown run, reminiscent of Marshawn Lynch’s famous ‘beast quake’ run, with 6:06 left in the third quarter gave them an 11-point cushion and they never looked back.
It was poetic justice for Stanback against the team who cast him aside months after winning the Grey Cup. One of the four turnovers was a pass that went through his hands and into the arms of an Alouettes defender while his fumble inside the 20-yard line late in the first half led to the Alouettes’ first touchdown and cut the visitors’ lead to only 17-13 at the break, a potential 14-point swing. Poetic justice indeed.
“I wasn’t trying to get denied. What happened in the second quarter, I felt like I could have gotten us not necessarily a touchdown but to put us in a better position to score a touchdown and I fumbled the ball,” Stanback said after the win.
“That’s not something that I do. I was down on myself but the team continued to push me and lift me up to let me know that hey, we’re behind you 100 per cent. Coming back in the second half and busting that out, that’s what the point was.”
And he did admit that the win felt a little extra special, given how his tenure ended with getting released right before free agency.
“Definitely. I tried not to think about it too much because I take it game by game and I don’t want to look too far in the future. But it definitely was something I was looking forward to.”
After the Alouettes crawled back to within four, Rourke put it away with his 18-yard end-around touchdown run on a third and inches. Number 12 wasn’t done running after that one as he raced out to salute his offensive line after the successful convert. What a teammate.
“We talked about it all the time, about winning by any means. That was kind of the definition right there”, Rourke said.
“We did a great job of not snowballing. We had some lows; we had some mistakes and we bounced back. We were able to continue to keep going and we really stopped ourselves a lot of the time, more than they stopped us. Our defence, hats off to them. They did a great job of doing what they could in the tough situations. Hats off to to RP and his group, special teams did their thing as well. So, just a complete team win. We’d like to be a bit cleaner on offence but a big win nonetheless against a really good team.”
Rourke finished his night 22/28 for 304 yards, one touchdown strike, one more on the ground and three inteceptions.
No doubt this one should turn a few heads given the fact Montreal has clearly been the class of the league since hoisting the Grey Cup last November. It was their first defeat in eight weeks.
“It was great, man. Everyone around the league was talking about the best teams and Montreal was one of them. We felt like us coming out here and not necessarily dominating the way we wanted to because we did have some hiccups, but we felt really good about us and where we stand,” Stanback added.
Sweet revenge indeed.
Key Numbers156- Stanback’s total yards from scrimmage when you factor in 28 yards on a pair of receptions. His 128 rushing yards came on 20 carries (6.8-yard average).
472– the Lions’ net offence in this victory.
8/10- Rourke had an impressive completion rate while facing the Montreal blitz. One of the completions was Eberhardt’s touchdown. The stat is courtesy TSN’s Moe Khan.
4– quarterback sacks for the defence that was once again given extra juice. Jonah Tavai’s sack caused a fumble recovered by Mathieu Betts. Other sacks were recorded by Christian Covington, Tibo Debaillie and Sione Tehuema.
3- the Lions were very disciplined in this one with only three penalties for 40 yards.
Next UpThe squad returns home to face the Toronto Argonauts on Friday, September 13. Join us for Legends Night where we celebrate out 70th season and induct the 2000 Grey Cup champions onto our Wall of Fame. Tickets can be secured HERE with seats starting at $25 for adults and $15 for kids 17 and under.
Matt Baker: [email protected]
