Buck makes history

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This article was published 24/06/2011 (5190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the same night the franchise honoured Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterbacking legend Ken Ploen, a different Bombers quarterback — Buck Pierce — wrote the next chapter of a little legend of his own.

With his brief appearance Thursday night in the Bombers’ second and final pre-season tilt against the Toronto Argonauts at Canad Inns Stadium, Pierce is now believed to be the first professional quarterback to ever return to play after suffering a dislocated elbow on his throwing arm.

Trailing 23-9, the Bombers got two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to tie the game 23-23, but then blew the comeback in spectacular fashion as third-string Argos running back Chad Kackert got loose on a 73-yard touchdown run with less than a minute to play to give the Argos the 30-23 victory. The loss means the Bombers finish the pre-season 0-2.

But the most compelling storyline last night was not the aborted Bombers comeback, but rather the successful one authored by their starting quarterback.

Although there was no telling that to Pierce, who seemed to be alluding to a maddening string of Bomber losses by close scores last season when he reflected on what happened Thursday night. “We still have to finish,” Pierce said. “That’s something that’s going to be brought up until we do that — go out and finish games.”

Still, what Pierce did just by suiting up was a monumental accomplishment — and so it was perhaps fitting, then, that it occurred on the same night the Bombers honoured hall-of-famer Ploen with a halftime ceremony announcing plans to name the street that runs in front of the new football stadium going up at University of Manitoba ‘Ken Ploen Way.’

Pierce started slowly, going two-and-out on his first two possessions, but started to find his rhythm on the Bombers third possession, giving a near-capacity crowd of 29,117 exactly what they’d come to see on a 24-yard pass to Terence Jeffers-Harris midway through the first quarter.

The completion was Pierce’s longest of the night but the drive stalled. Pierce was his most effective on the next possession, taking the Bombers 58 yards on 13 plays to set up the second of what were a total of three Justin Palardy field goals on the night.

Pierce left the game midway through the second quarter, finishing the night 10-for-14 for 71 yards. Those aren’t, of course, the kind of numbers that will have anyone forgetting about Ploen — especially now that the man has his own street.

But they were a respectable next step in what’s been a very long comeback for Pierce and should offer some reassurance to Bomber fans for whom Pierce’s return to the Bombers helm was until Thursday night only a bold proposal.

Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice thought Pierce did well to handle a Toronto defence that was unusually aggressive for a pre-season game. But still…

“I’d like us to get more touchdowns,” said LaPolice. “We had one drive where we dropped two balls. We had another drive where we jumped offsides… We got a lot of stuff to clean up.”

The Bombers fell behind 7-0 before the game was two minutes old as Argos starter Cleo Lemon needed all of three plays to find WR Brandon Rideau — who had a monstrous game — in behind Bombers CB Jovon Johnson for a 47-yard TD completion.

Trailing 23-9 early in the fourth quarter, the Bombers finally put a touchdown on the board as QB Joey Elliott — who struggled to move the ball to that point — hooked up with Josh Bishop on a 44-yard catch and run and then one play later found Clarence Denmark to conclude the two-play, 58-yard drive.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

the fifth quarter c6