The Alouettes lose to the « Argos »

Unable to get going offensively before the fourth quarter, the Alouettes had no choice but to concede first place in the East Division to the Toronto Argonauts.

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Head coach Danny Maciocia’s troop had to win on Saturday at Percival-Molson Stadium to hope to get ahead of its rivals in the Queen City by the end of the regular season. The « Als », however, suffered a loss of 24 to 23.

The Sparrows had yet found a way to level the score twice, and this, by scoring 17 points in the last 15 minutes. A failed goal from 47 yards from Boris Bede, however, gave the visitors victory on the last play of the game. Returner Chandler Worthy caught the ball with one of his feet out of bounds, which conceded the winning single…

“We weren’t able to execute on offense in the first half and on defense in the second half,” head coach Danny Maciocia said dryly.

Early game failures

As was too often the case in 2022, the Sparrows attack was moribund in the red zone, where it notably experienced failure on its first two sequences.

Quarterback Trevor Harris first threw an interception with just 15 yards to open the scoring. As soon as the offensive unit returned to the field, running back Jeshrun Antwi was stopped in third down position and one yard to get to reach the end zone.

“Any time we lose a tight game like this, there are always questions about the decisions we made,” Harris said.

“We could have amassed a minimum of six points with two field goals and a maximum of 14 points with touchdowns. We scored zero points on those streaks and lost the game by a single point.”

Maciocia, however, had no regrets about the strategies used.

“Obviously we are disappointed, because we got chances with our attack. We were quite aggressive. We wanted to set the tone for the match,” he said.

indiscipline

After ignoring its failures in the first half, the attack of the “Als” redeemed itself. Jake Wieneke and Eugene Lewis caught relays in the end zone. After the success of the first, the Argonauts benefited from the indiscipline of the favorites of the crowd to regain a priority of seven points. The Alouettes’ defense gave a total of 95 yards and nine first downs on the two offensive sequences that made the difference late in the game.

“We can’t be happy with ourselves in this kind of defeat. We had a lot of good plays, but we have to be better,” said linebacker Tyrice Beverette. We must also work on indiscipline. We are certainly not satisfied with our performance.”

– The Alouettes will complete their regular season against the Argonauts in Toronto, next Saturday. They will then host the Eastern Semi-Final, where they will face either the Hamilton Tiger-Cats or the Saskatchewan Roughriders.