REGINA \u2013\u00a0The temperature on the field might have been as hot as in recent memory for the game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday night at Mosaic Stadium, but the Riders defence just might have exceeded that heat on the field.<\/p>\n
The Green and White defenders helped Saskatchewan\u2019s offence overcome a slow start with some stellar play through the first half and then pitched a shutout after the break as the Riders pulled away for a 38-7 victory.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan improves to 4-1 and moves into a tie for first in the West Division with the Edmonton Elks, while Hamilton falls to 2-3 and are tied for second in the East.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m glad\u00a0how resilient we were tonight, playing connected football early on,\u201d said Roughriders linebacker James Woods, who had a game-clinching 107-yard pick-six in the fourth quarter. \u201cGetting two and outs, getting off the field, holding all game and limiting them to what they had. I’m\u00a0really proud of the way that we had pressure, got off the field, created turnovers. I think we played a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither team had much going through the first quarter in a 1-1 draw after the first 15 minutes, but the Riders got on the board with the first major of the game on a 10-yard catch by Samuel Emilus with 1:39 to play in the first half. Emilus finished with six catches\u00a0for 72 yards and his major. He was happy to see his team find their way offensively despite their slow start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we left some points on the board, especially early in the game, but that’s what the game of football is,\u201d he said. \u201cYou’re going to have some ups and downs, and we picked it up at the right time, especially in the fourth quarter with the turnovers on defence, putting points on the board and Tommy [Stevens] finishing the game like always.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan took an 11-7 lead into the halftime break before pulling away for good, going ahead 18-7 through three quarters before pouring on 20 unanswered points in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Kian Schaffer-Baker had the Riders\u2019 major in the third before a 40-yard fumble return by Marcus Sayles led to Stevens scoring from one-yard out early in the fourth. Woods\u2019 pick-six made it 31-7 with 2:47 to play. Stevens finished off the scoring with a 14-yard touchdown run with 1:22 remaining.<\/p>\n
The Riders held Hamilton and its lethal receivers\u00a0to\u00a0250 yards of offence, including\u00a053\u00a0in the first half. Seeing his defence come up with such an impressive outing was naturally a positive for Riders coach Corey Mace.<\/p>\n
\u201cOffensively, I thought we were moving the field, but we couldn’t quite capitalize and then in the second half the levies kind of broke,\u201d Mace said. \u201cThe turnovers, they came in bunches for us and we capitalized off of them. So, I’m proud of the whole group, man, to be able to push through and get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trevor Harris finished 18-of-25 passing for 211 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions, while A.J.\u00a0Ouellette had 18 carries for 83 yards in his return to the lineup. Schaffer-Baker was the Riders\u2019 top receiver\u00a0with six catches for 78 yards.<\/p>\n
Hamilton quarterback Jake Dolegala was 17-for-30 passing for 122 yards and an interception, Kiondre Smith was their top offensive producer with five catches for 56 yards.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan\u00a0heads into its second bye week before returning to the field on July 23 against the Elks at Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REGINA \u2013\u00a0The temperature on the field might have been as hot as in recent memory for the game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[224145,224143,49,48,521,522,520,224144,4398,224142,1893,4397,4402,4401,4400,4399,82,4403],"class_list":["post-798561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-100-year-celebration","tag-620-ckrm","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-ckrm","tag-country-music","tag-countrys-greatest-hits","tag-radio","tag-regina-news","tag-reigna-pats","tag-rider-radio","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan-sports","tag-sports","tag-sportscage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798561","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=798561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}