The Saskatchewan Roughriders, for the most part, looked rusty in a 19-17 loss to the B.C. Lions Sunday afternoon at Mosaic Stadium in the pre-season opener for both football clubs.
After seven days of training camp, the majority of which were held under dark clouds and rain, the sun finally came out for a beautiful afternoon in the Saskatchewan capital. A crowd of 29,227 nearly filled the stadium to capacity and those in attendance enjoyed 20 C temperatures with a slight southeast wind.
The Lions jumped out front 10-0 early, as quarterback Casey Printers threw a touchdown pass to rookie Steven Black and Paul McCallum booted a field goal for the first quarter lead.
The Saskatchewan offence was unable to get on track for starting quarterback Darian Durant, but the game changed in the second quarter under backup Ryan Dinwiddie. Dinwiddie fired a pair of touchdown strikes to Canadian receivers Jason Clermont and Rob Bagg to give Saskatchewan a 14-13 lead at halftime.
However the offence went dormant again over the final 30 minutes as backup pivots Cole Bergquist and Kent Smith were unable to find the endzone. The Lions notched a pair of field goals from sophomore kicker Sean Whyte in the second half and they rode out of Regina with a 19-17 victory.
?I don?t like to lose, I don?t care what the situation was particularly when we had the chance to win," fumed Rider coach Ken Miller after the game. "We had two touchdowns called back on bad penalties and we had a punt blocked. If we?d made a first down, we could?ve won the game, but we just didn?t execute well enough. Our defence was good in spurts, but I didn?t like the way B.C. rushed the ball on us late in the game.?
Dinwiddie was named the offensive game star, going 13/19 for 141 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
"I felt okay," Dinwiddie said. "There were some throws I'd like to have back and some plays I could've made. For the first pre-season game, I felt like I got the rust off, got command of the huddle and saw the field well. I wanted to show the fans I'm not the player they saw in the 2007 Grey Cup for Winnipeg. I'm a new player."
The Roughriders conclude the pre-season Sunday afternoon at Calgary.
RIDER NOTES: Durant got the start at quarterback despite injuring the index finger on his throwing hand Thursday. He played a joke on his teammates, and the province, by coming out for practice Friday wearing a phony cast. He called it "a prank" and cut the cast off a short time later. Not everyone was amused with the practical joke, in fact TSN analyst Matt Dunigan called the prank "ridiculous" on my radio show Friday.
The Riders' home-opener on Canada Day against Montreal is still not sold out.
Two regular season games are already sold out - July 17 against Edmonton and the Labour Day Classic against Winnipeg.
The Riders made two cuts during week one of training camp; rookie quarterback Todd Reesing and veteran offensive tackle Belton Johnson.
