Swagger 30, Hammer 27

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/08/2011 (5465 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a “cartoon” alright.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive back Jovon Johnson played the role of Road Runner, Bombers quarterback Buck Pierce was the rascally rabbit and Hamilton receiver Dave Stala and the rest of the Tiger-Cats pounded it off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote Friday night at Canad Inns Stadium as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers did what they’ve done best all season long — overcome adversity to win a football game.

In a week that saw Stala publicly deride the Bombers self-styled “Swaggerville” as a “cartoon,” the last laugh was on the Ticats as the Bombers squandered a 17-3 second quarter lead but then came roaring back in the fourth quarter, scoring the final 10 points of the game to squeak out a 30-27 victory to the delight of an overflow crowd of 30,338.

“People can talk all they want,” said Johnson, the self-proclaimed CEO of Swaggerville, “but at the end of the day, they still have to play the game.

“The way they were talking all week about Swaggerville being a cartoon, I was the Road Runner on that play. My legs were going as fast as they can, I’ll tell you.”

“That play” was a 67-yard Johnson interception return for a touchdown in the first quarter that opened the scoring for Winnipeg and set the stage for what was an electric night all evening long, fuelled in advance by a flurry of pre-game hype that ranged from Stala’s bold talk to Tina LaPolice’s tweet to a stadium that grew three different times over the course of the week as the Bombers front office found new ways to jam even more people inside.

“I’ve never seen anything like that crowd tonight,” said Pierce, who authored the fourth-quarter comeback. “It was unbelievable. out there.”

“The volume out there tonight,” exclaimed Doug Brown, “we were clapping for the fans.”

The win was the fifth in a row for the Bombers, improves their record to a league-leading 7-1 and, perhaps most importantly, gives them the season-series win over the East-division rival Ticats, who now trail Winnipeg by six points.

With the Bombers trailing 27-20 in the fourth quarter, Pierce turned to his most reliable target all season long — slotback Terrence Edwards.

With Winnipeg on its own 35-yard line, Pierce found Edwards behind Ticats coverage for a 53-yard gain. And then four plays later, the pair hooked up again on a 12-yard touchdown pass to tie the game 27-27. “He’s a guy you just trust as a quarterback,” said Pierce. “You know he’s going to do what I’m thinking.”

And Pierce wasn’t done yet. With the clock running down, the Bombers’ pivot authored a withering nine-play, 65-yard drive to set up what proved to be a game-winning 21-yard field goal by Justin Palardy with just six minutes to play.

Pierce was red-hot in the first and fourth quarters, but by his own admission struggled mightily in the middle frames as Hamilton went on a 24-3 scoring run that included second quarter TD passes by Kevin Glenn of 49 and 43 yards. Pierce finished the night 19-34 for 293 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Winnipeg has now trailed at some point in all seven of their victories this season, but could not rely on their dominance of the third quarter — they had outscored opponents 76-13 in the third quarter, but were outscored 7-3 last night — to secure this victory.

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And yet still they found a way. “Those are character-building games,” said Pierce. “That’s the definition of what a good football team is. It’s that kind of character and winning games like this. You have to go through these things. And we’ll continue to grow.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be in the entire world than this locker room right now,” said Palardy, who went 3-3. “It’s just that much fun right now.”

The Bombers next game is Sept. 4 in Regina against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

NOTED: The Bombers announced late last night that former club chairman and longtime board member Ken Hildahl died suddenly on Friday.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca