EDMONTON \u2013 The Edmonton Elks continued their strong start to the season, holding off the BC Lions for a 19-17 victory at Commonwealth Stadium on Friday night.<\/p>\n
BC Lions quarterback <\/a>Nathan Rourke<\/a> left Friday\u2019s contest<\/a> after two plays due to a left shoulder injury. Rourke was sacked by Noah Taylor on the second play of the Lions\u2019 opening drive and did not return. Rourke\u2019s absence was felt early on as backup quarterback Chase Brice<\/a>\u2019s first pass attempt was intercepted by Gavin Meyer<\/a>, setting the Elks up in prime scoring position.<\/p>\n The Elks defence swarmed Brice and the Leos all evening, intercepting the quarterback four times and holding him to only 226 yards.<\/p>\n Cody Fajardo<\/a> was clinical in helping move the Elks to 5-1 on the season, going 27 for 37, tossing 282 yards and one touchdown.<\/p>\n RELATED Brice completed 20 of 34 passes for 226 yards, one touchdown and four picks. The Elks made it tough on Brice all evening and saved their best work for their last drive. After Brice got the ball back with under two minutes to play, the Elks sacked Brice two times on the final possession to force a turnover on downs, and improve to first place in the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n T.J. Luther put the Elks ahead for good in the second quarter. Luther was on the receiving end of Cody Fajardo<\/a>\u2019s ninth touchdown pass of the season, scoring from four yards out to raise Fajardo\u2019s season touchdown total to nine touchdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joshua Cephus led all receivers in Friday\u2019s game, totalling 97 yards on five catches. For the Lions, Keon Hatcher Sr. provided a spark to the offence, picking up 81 yards and a touchdown on the night. Hatcher\u2019s touchdown was the first of his season and came on an 11-yard strike.\u00a0<\/p>\n The running games for both teams were held in check for much of the evening as CFL leading rusher Justin Rankin was held to nine yards on seven attempts. Rankin did contribute as a pass-catcher once again, catching six passes for 46 yards.<\/p>\n James Butler<\/a> was also slowed down on Friday. The Lions running back totalled only four yards on seven carries.<\/p>\n The Lions are 1-4 through five games and find themselves fifth in a crowded West Division.\u00a0<\/p>\n SCORING PLAYS<\/p>\n Vincent Blanchard 38-yard field goal (9:16, Q1) | EDM 3, BC 0 \u00a0<\/p>\n NEXT UP<\/p>\n In Week 8, the Elks travel to Saskatchewan to take on the Roughriders on Thursday. The last time these two teams met was during the 2025 season, a meeting which the Elks won by a score of 27-25.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Lions host the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday at BC Place. BC claimed a 27-22 victory the last time these two teams met on September 26, 2025. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2013 The Edmonton Elks continued their strong start to the season, holding off the BC Lions for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-809501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809501","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=809501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u00bb Depth Charts:\u00a0BC<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0EDM<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Game Tracker: Lions at Elks<\/a>
\u00bb Nathan Rourke<\/a> leaves game against Elks with injury<\/a>
\u00bb\u00a0Sign up and watch CFL games on CFL+ in the U.S. and Internationally<\/a><\/p>\n
\nZander Horvath one-yard touchdown run (2:57, Q1) | BC 7, EDM 3
\nCody Fajardo<\/a> four-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Luther (8:16, Q2) | EDM 10, BC 7
\nVincent Blanchard 26-yard field goal (3:30, Q2) | EDM 13, BC 7
\nVincent Blanchard 26-yard field goal (0:01, Q2) | EDM 16, BC 7
\nVincent Blanchard 16-yard field goal (1:11, Q3) | EDM 19, BC 7
\nChase Brice<\/a> 11-yard touchdown pass to Keon Hatcher Sr. (13:13, Q4) | EDM 19, BC 14
\nSean Whyte<\/a> 19-yard field goal (9:47, Q4) | EDM 19, BC 17<\/p>\n