After toppling Canada West’s front-running football team Friday night, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies can take a small — but hopefully tasty — breather.
The Huskies defeated the previously-unbeaten Manitoba Bisons 42-24 at Griffiths Stadium, a nice little runway into the upcoming Thanksgiving-week bye.
“(Offensive co-ordinator) Jeremy Long is always saying the turkey tastes a lot better at Thanksgiving with a win coming into the bye,” Huskies’ quarterback Anton Amundrud said after the game. “He’s been preaching that all week.”
The Bisons are now 5-1, and the Huskies improve to 3-3 after a rough start to their season. They lost three of their first four games before toppling Alberta 33-30 last weekend, then they slid past the nation’s seventh-ranked team on Friday.
“This is big going into the break at .500, with the way we started the season,” Amundrud said.
Friday’s contest featured a little game-within-a-game late in the fourth quarter, with both squads playing to gain the tie-breaker should they end the regular season with identical records.
The tie-breaker is based on the head-to-head points spread, and Manitoba beat Saskatchewan 37-24 earlier this season to give them a 13-point edge. The Bisons staged an 11-play drive in the game’s final 2 1/2 minutes, needing a touchdown to clinch the tie-breaker, but stalled at the Saskatchewan three after a third-down gamble.
So the tie-breaker goes to the Huskies, should they need it.
“If they scored a touchdown, they’d have got the point-spread. We were conscious of it, and I’m sure they were, too,” said Huskies’ head coach Scott Flory. “Who knows if it’ll come into play down the road, but at least it gives us a chance, that if we do end up with a tied record, we’ve got the edge.”
The Huskies led 27-3 at halftime, but Manitoba chipped away in the fourth quarter. The Bisons closed the gap to 34-24, with just under three minutes to play, until Saskatchewan’s Ryker Frank busted a 55-yard touchdown run to put them away.
“We’ve been building,” said Huskies’ linebacker Lane Novak. “We’ve been working for this. We could feel it last week in that win, and this is another big confidence-builder. We’re starting to discover who we are, and starting to play some Huskie football.”
Frank carried 23 times for 163 yards, including a one-yard touchdown run and the game-settling 55-yarder. The Huskies also got an 86-yard TD catch from Dawson Lennea, who finished with seven receptions for 162 yards. Branson Pipko chipped in a six-yard touchdown catch, and Lukas Scott booted field goals of 43, 25 and 22 yards.
Manitoba got touchdown runs of four yards and one yard from Breydon Stubbs, and a five-yard TD scramble from quarterback Jackson Tachinski. Maya Turner added a 48-yard field goal.
Friday’s contest was the first time this season the Huskies’ defence kept a team to less than 30 points.
“They’re always going to make plays, but we held together,” Novak said. “When they moved the ball, we made them work for it, killing time off the clock. It was probably one of our best performances (as a defence). The d-line was stout up front, and we worked as a unit.”
Said Flory: “The important thing is we’re getting better each and every week, and historically, that’s what we pride ourselves on. We don’t quit. We’ve got a real lunchpail-mentality group here — they’re not big, brash personalities. They just come to work every day, wanting to get better.”
In Friday’s other game, British Columbia beat Alberta 35-25. UBC is now 4-2, and Alberta is 2-4.
On Saturday, Regina (2-3) and Calgary (1-4) will square off.
The entire conference will take next weekend off, and the Huskies will close their regular-season schedule with an Oct. 19 home game against Regina and an Oct. 26 road contest in Calgary.
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