Calgary Stampeders quarterback Vernon Adams Jr., left, hands the ball off to Deonta McMahon, on Saturday.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
A 62-yard field goal by Rene Paredes, for the longest of his career, with two seconds remaining gave the Calgary Stampeders a 40-38 win over the visiting Ottawa Redblacks in the CFL on Saturday.
Quincy Vaughn scored a pair of short-yardage rushing touchdowns and Tevin Jones and Jalen Philpot each caught touchdown passes for Calgary (6-8), which stayed in the playoff conversation, albeit in last place in the West Division.
Paredes also produced field goals from 57, 23 and 19 yards, as well as four convert points in front of an announced 20,113 at McMahon Stadium.
Quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson, in his first start for Ottawa this season, threw five touchdown passes and Keelan White caught three of them as the Redblacks fell to 0-13 on the season.
The Redblacks became just the second team in CFL history to start a season with 13 straight losses after the Shreveport Pirates in 1994.
Justin Hardy’s touchdown catch with 72 seconds remaining and Brett Lauther’s convert point gave the Redblacks at 38-37 lead.
Kalil Pimpleton caught a touchdown pass in the third quarter to cut Calgary’s lead to a field goal heading into the fourth quarter.
Lauther missed a field-goal attempt from 43 yards, but was good from 37 yards and added four convert points.
Bethel-Thompson, 38, completed 27 of 48 pass attempts for 379 yards and was intercepted once.
Calgary quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. was 28-for-41 in passing for 357 yards and two touchdowns. He was intercepted for a fifth time in five games after a clean sheet in his first eight games this season.
Adams went down clutching his left ankle after contact with one of his offensive lineman early in the third quarter.
He returned to play the next series, however, and orchestrated a seven-play, 57-yard touchdown drive finished by Vaughn for Calgary’s 24-14 lead.
But Bethel-Thompson connected with Pimpleton on a 28-yard catch and run to score. Lauther and Paredes traded field goals early in the fourth quarter.
Bethel-Thompson threw to White at Calgary’s nine-yard line and the 24-year-old from North Vancouver, B.C., ran the ball in for a four-point lead.
But the Stampeders countered with a 63-yard march that concluded with Philpot’s 26-yard catch in the end zone to re-take the lead 34-31.
Zy Alexander picked off a Bethel-Thompson throw on the Redblack’s subsequent drive that bounced out of Hardy’s hands to give Calgary the ball on Ottawa’s 23-yard line.
The Stampeders managed only a field goal to lead by six points with just over two minutes to play.
Their defence thought Ottawa turned the ball over on downs on the Redblacks’ next drive, but Ottawa kept the drive alive on a successful pass interference challenge by coach Ryan Dinwiddie.
Bethel-Thompson threw 15 yards to Hardy for a one-point lead. The game was left to the leg of Paredes after Calgary’s offence struggled to push deep into Ottawa territory.
Calgary was up 17-14 at halftime after Adams aired the ball downfield to Jones for a 60-yard touchdown with 36 seconds remaining.
Ottawa led for the first time in the game with a minute left in the first half. Bethel-Thompson found White in the end zone a second time in a three-minute span with a 25-yard throw for a 14-10 lead.
Calgary’s Paredes drilled a low, hard kick 57 yards with the wind behind him for a field goal.
After failing to cash a second-quarter interception of Adams into points and then turning the ball over on downs on Calgary’s 11-yard line, Ottawa scored just inside the three-minute warning when Bethel-Thompson threw 19 yards to White in the end zone
The host Stampeders scored on their first possession with an 11-play, 66-yard march capped by Vaughn’s one-yard plunge.
On Ottawa’s opening drive, Lauther’s field-goal attempt on a 43-yarder was wide for just his second miss this season.
Temperature at kickoff was C 22 with winds gusting to 44 km/h.