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Video: Chad Owens made a catch-of-the-year candidate in a last-minute Argos' win

Video: Chad Owens made a catch-of-the-year candidate in a last-minute Argos' win

Tuesday's game set up as an extremely difficult one for the Toronto Argonauts. Thanks to the Blue Jays' postseason run, the Argos held a "home" game on the road in Ottawa against the Redblacks, who were coming off a 39-17 thumping of Montreal that saw quarterback Henry Burris set a CFL completions record. Toronto fared much better against Ottawa than the Alouettes did, but with just 29 seconds left, they were still down by four points.  That's when Chad Owens made one of the year's best catches:

This stacks up as one of the top catches we've seen in the CFL this year, and perhaps one of the best ever. The 5'8'', 180-pound Owens shows great speed to break away from his defender and get open, but what's really remarkable is how he goes up and not only grabs a rocket like this with one hand, but manages to hang on to it. Owens, the CFL's Most Outstanding Player in 2012, has played a smaller role in the receiving corps for Toronto this season thanks to the emergence of a group of young, talented pass-catchers (he has 39 catches for 431 yards, behind Tori Gurley, Vidal Hazelton and Kevin Elliott), but this play showed he can still be a key contributor for the Argos when called upon.

Interestingly enough, this was such a difficult catch not because of a mistake from quarterback Trevor Harris, but rather because Owens was behind on his route thanks to a grab from Ottawa safety Forrest Hightower. He told Yahoo's Neate Sager afterwards that Hightower slowed him down, but that he was still determined to make this catch after missing a similar one earlier this season:

"He grabbed me because I beat him across his face, a little grab around the waist, try to slow me up," Owens explained.

"I just told myself to dig. Because there was a play earlier this year, a two-point convert against Hamilton, I believe. Same play, same route, same situation. And it was right over me, I missed it. I felt the exact same thing tonight. I told myself to dig, dig, dig and dig, and went for it.

"It just goes to show that if you practise something you improve at it and you're ready when the moment comes.

That perseverance could be applied to the Argonauts as a whole. They've faced incredible adversity this year, from playing on the road until August (including another "home" game in Fort McMurray, Alberta) to being in the final season of David Braley's ownership and having no money for free agents or marketing to being booted by the Blue Jays to having starting quarterback Ricky Ray miss the entire season to date while recovering from shoulder surgery. Somehow, they've kept digging, though, and they're now 8-5 and tied for first in the East with Hamilton. They would lose the season series tiebreaker to the Tiger-Cats, but they now hold the tiebreaker over the 8-6 Redblacks, so they have a chance of finishing in first. At the start of the season, that would have seemed highly improbable, as would Owens' chances of hauling this pass in. He managed to find a way, though, and his team might do so as well.