MONTREAL \u2013 Everything flipped on Davis Alexander in a six-minute blur, but his belief held firm.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to bet on myself every single time,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t care. I’m never going to be scared of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montreal\u2019s quarterback threw for one touchdown and rushed for another in a wild 42-33 win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the CFL\u2019s East Division semifinal Saturday, helping the Alouettes avoid an epic collapse to reach the division final.<\/p>\n
The Alouettes were in the driver\u2019s seat early, leading Winnipeg by as many as 22 points in the second quarter. Six minutes into the third, it was all undone.<\/p>\n
\u201cFelt like the sky was falling,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cSomehow we blink and we\u2019re down two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winnipeg came out of the half and stunned Montreal with three consecutive touchdowns early in the third \u2014 including one after an Alexander interception \u2014 to take a 27-25 lead.<\/p>\n
Many teams would have folded after such a momentum shift. Alexander and the Alouettes went back to work.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old American hit Austin Mack for a 50-yard diving catch, leading to Stevie Scott III\u2019s first touchdown to restore Montreal\u2019s lead, one the Alouettes wouldn\u2019t squander.<\/p>\n
And when Montreal needed a first down in the dying minutes of a one-possession game, the shifty quarterback, who appeared out of options, rushed for a crucial 18-yard gain on second down to keep the ball out of Winnipeg\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
A 12-yard field goal from Jose Maltos Diaz soon after sealed Montreal\u2019s win with 33 seconds left, ensuring Alexander \u2014 who set a CFL record with 11 straight regular-season wins to begin his career \u2014 remained undefeated in his first playoff start.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the most humble way possible, I feel like I’m built for this,\u201d said Alexander, who finished with 384 yards on 24-for-34 passing. \u201cI’m built for this league, I’m built to be the quarterback of the Montreal Alouettes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Jason Maas, who was a longtime CFL quarterback and has seen many of the league\u2019s legends up close, described Alexander\u2019s competitiveness as unmatched.<\/p>\n
“There’s a belief in him, a competitiveness in him that’s unnatural in my opinion,\u201d he said. \u201cHe’s just one of those guys that does that to the nth degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat man will fight to the end for his teammates and for that locker room on every single play, and it shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Alouettes travel to Hamilton to face the Tiger-Cats on Nov. 8 for their third consecutive East Division final. The winner advances to the Grey Cup in Winnipeg on Nov. 16.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Blue Bombers’ streak of five consecutive trips to the championship game \u2014 in which they won two titles \u2014 came to an end.<\/p>\n
“A lot of memories, a lot of great memories,\u201d said veteran quarterback Zach Collaros. \u201cA lot pain when you lose games, but it’s about the work, it’s about the process of it all. And just so blessed to have gone to work for the last six seasons with this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s what makes it so hard, having the Grey Cup in Winnipeg, right? It\u2019s a goal for everybody to make the Grey Cup, but especially when it’s at home, and to not be able to do that, it’s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old Collaros, a two-time outstanding player, chose not to field questions about his future but did say that, at this time, he hopes to keep playing. He had 306 passing yards with one TD and one interception.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been incredible. I’m not saying that I’m like \u2026 right now I’m not saying it’s gone,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope to continue, continue making those memories, but reflecting on the last six seasons and because it ended like this, and it’s tough. It’s really special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyson Philpot scored two touchdowns for Montreal \u2014 one rushing, one receiving \u2014 while Scott ran for two TDs and totalled 133 rushing yards before an announced crowd of 19,785 on a windy, 7 Celsius day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Terry Wilson kicked off the Bombers\u2019 third-quarter surge. He punched the ball into the end zone on a one-yard run 2:16 into the quarter after a pass interference call to Wesley Sutton put Winnipeg near the goal line.<\/p>\n
Winnipeg safety Cam Allen then picked off Alexander. On the next play, Collaros connected with Ontaria Wilson on a 54-yard TD pass, cutting the lead to 25-20.<\/p>\n
And the hits kept coming. Alexander threw a long pass to Philpot on the next drive, but Jamal Parker forced a fumble and Winnipeg\u2019s Evan Holm recovered. The turnover led to another one-yard score from Terry Wilson.<\/p>\n
“It was impressive to see, I mean they just went out there and made some plays and were determined to get back into it,\u201d Bombers head coach Mike O\u2019Shea said. \u201cWe made it a regular football game again, you end up being plus two at a certain point and it’s just a regular football game and then from there, it just didn’t work out.”<\/p>\n
The Alouettes regained the lead with the clock at 6:37 as Scott rushed into the end zone on a 13-yard TD to make it 32-27.<\/p>\n
The Alouettes pushed the advantage to 39-30 with 8:53 remaining in the game after Scott, with help from his offensive line, forced his way into the end zone on a seven-yard score.<\/p>\n
The Bombers kicked another field goal to cut the Alouettes’ lead to 39-33 with seven minutes remaining. Montreal\u2019s defence held Winnipeg off the board the rest of the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2013 Everything flipped on Davis Alexander in a six-minute blur, but his belief held firm. “I’m going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-256091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}