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Turnovers and calls doom Lions, move Bombers into second place in the West

Turnovers and calls doom Lions, move Bombers into second place in the West

For the second straight week, the B.C. Lions have suffered a close, controversial loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, this time falling 35-32 at home Friday after last week's 37-35 road loss. In both games, officiating decisions played a critical role, with a reversal of a Winnipeg fumble going a long way to determine last week's outcome and a questionable late unnecessary roughness call on Lions' linebacker Adam Bighill doing a lot to decide the result Friday. However, the bigger issue for B.C. may be turnovers; the six turnovers they committed in this game is a stat that's likely to lose them most contests, regardless of if they get calls or not.

In fact, one of the more surprising elements of this game may be that Winnipeg didn't do more with those turnovers, especially early on. The Bombers' defence and special teams kept making plays, with B.C. native and UBC product Taylor Loffler in particular standing out (the rookie safety had two interceptions, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery), but the Winnipeg offence couldn't always capitalize.They did convert turnovers into points late, though.

That late success helped redeem some questionable coaching decisions, such as kicking a field goal from the one-yard line down 10 points. B.C.'s Chris Rainey fumbled on the ensuing return, letting Winnipeg drive for a game-tying TD, and Kevin Fogg then picked off a pass on the next drive, setting up the Justin Medlock field goal that would ultimately win it for the Bombers. (B.C. had a final chance of their own thanks to a better Rainey return, but Richie Leone didn't quite have the distance from 62 yards out.) Winnipeg executed well down the stretch, but these levels of turnovers might have produced even a more lopsided result against a team that could capitalize on them more.

To that end, the Lions' defence deserves substantial credit despite the 35 points given up in the end. They held the Bombers to 12 points in the first half despite a bunch of turnovers, and they recorded some nice turnovers of their own, picking off Winnipeg quarterback Matt Nichols twice. They might have even produced a different result if Bighill hadn't been flagged for that questionable late call; he came up with a great goal-line stop on Nichols that should have forced the Bombers into a field goal, but was penalized for a tackle that didn't look all that rough. They largely did their job. The Lions' offence had more issues, including quarterback Jonathon Jennings' three interceptions, but he did throw for 327 yards and two touchdowns with a 75.9 per cent completion mark; the 3.9 yards per carry running back Jeremiah Johnson averaged on 13 carries was perhaps more problematic. It was the turnovers that really doomed B.C., though, and that has them falling behind Winnipeg in the race to host a playoff game.

With the win, the Bombers are now 10-6 and in second place in the West, which would let them host the 9-6 Lions in the first round if the season ended today. They also now control the head-to-head tiebreaker if the two teams finish with equal records, so they're certainly in the driver's seat when it comes to playoff positioning. However, B.C. does have what looks like an easier remaining schedule (they host 8-7 Edmonton, then play a home-and-home series with 4-10 Saskatchewan, while Winnipeg has two games against 7-7-1 Ottawa), so they could still make up the ground. They're going to have to show a lot better ball security going forward if they hope to do that, though.