Admittedly, there were some bright lights in an otherwise bad Bomber season

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/11/2015 (3824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — In a season in which a 5-13 team missed its collective goals by a country mile, a couple of Winnipeg Blue Bombers players achieved some lofty individual achievements.

Topping that list is defensive end Jamaal Westerman, who regained the CFL sack lead Friday night with a pair of sacks on back-to-back plays in the fourth quarter at Rogers Centre in a 21-11 loss to the Toronto Argonauts.

Westerman finishes the 2015 season with 17 sacks, one more than Montreal Alouettes rush end John Bowman, so far. Bowman has one more game, however, against the Saskatchewan Roughriders Sunday.

Westerman wasn’t exactly celebrating Friday night, however.

“It doesn’t feel good with the way we finished the season. We didn’t play with enough effort, and we didn’t play like it was our last game.

“That kind of puts a little bit of a damper on it — you know what I’m saying?”

Rookie linebacker Khalil Bass also recorded a bit of a personal milestone Friday — his nine defensive tackles mean he finishes the season with a team-leading 102 tackles.

“It feels good to get that 100 mark,” said Bass, who said he got an assist from the coaching staff as he was still chasing the century mark deep into the fourth quarter. “They kind of kept me in there longer than they wanted to keep me in there,” Bass said.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, quarterback Dominique Davis raised some eyebrows in what was his first start for the Bombers.

Making what was also his first professional start, Davis did not look out of place. While he didn’t throw any TD passes, he also didn’t throw any interceptions and finished the night 16-of-25 for 169 yards after leaving late in the fourth quarter with a muscle pull.

“The game didn’t really mean anything but (the loss) still hurts,” said Davis.

“I went out there trying to compete and trying to get a win. So that loss — you can put that on me. I didn’t make enough plays.”

Head coach Mike O’Shea said he was pleased with what he saw in Davis’s debut.

“I thought he was all right. I thought we could have worked a little harder around him, possibly,” said O’Shea.

“This was a good experience for him. There’s a bit to learn with the game management side of it all, but that will come. It only comes with experience.”

In keeping with the theme of the Bombers’ season, there was plenty of blame to go around for the loss on this night.

A Bombers defence that got pushed around on far too many nights this season gave up 439 yards in a game Winnipeg auditioned a new defensive line that looked like it was playing on skates for much of the night.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Thursdays

Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter.

Sign up for Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Then there was kicker Sergio Castillo, who struggled in a game in which for the first time he was handling both the place-kicking and punting duties.

By night’s end, Castillo didn’t do either job particularly well — he was 3-of-5 on field goals and mustered just a 43.5-yard average on eight punts.

“I didn’t have the game I wanted to, but I enjoyed it. I did the best I could,” said Castillo.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek