D-lineman preparing for first CFL start

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This article was published 12/09/2014 (4040 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MARVIN Booker has gone from just another unemployed football player to a starting member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ front-four in the span of one week.

Booker, who the Bombers signed to their practice roster Sept. 4, took most of the first-team reps at defensive end Thursday at Investors Group Field as the Bombers scrambled to find a replacement for Zach Anderson, who the club announced Thursday had sustained a season-ending torn ACL during Wednesday’s practice.

With Anderson out for the year, Booker, who was at home in New Jersey looking for work when the Bombers called him last week, will get lots of playing time Saturday in Vancouver against the B.C. Lions in what will be the Rutgers graduate’s first CFL game. (He previously spent time on the Calgary Stampeders practice roster but never got into a game.)

“Sometimes those things happen. You never know when you’re going to be up,” Booker said following Winnipeg’s last full practice in advance of travelling to Vancouver today.

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said Booker and Willie Moseley, another defensive lineman the Bombers signed to their practice roster on Sept. 4, will both see action against the Lions with both Anderson and fellow defensive lineman Jason Vega out with knee injuries.

Vega’s injury, sustained in last Sunday’s Banjo Bowl, is less serious than Anderson’s and he is expected to return this season. Kashawn Fraser, who has also started games for the Bombers on the defensive line this season, is also out with an injury.

• The Bombers’ starting offence this weekend will likely be the same unit the team used against Saskatchewan in last Sunday’s Banjo Bowl, which the Bombers lost 30-24. The starting offensive unit practised intact on Thursday as the Bombers went through their final full practice at Investors Group Field before travelling to Vancouver today for a West Division battle against the Lions with important playoff implications.

The Bombers are 6-5 in the West Division standings while the Lions are 6-4. Winnipeg beat B.C. in Vancouver earlier this season and another Bombers victory this weekend would mean Winnipeg would win the season series.

“The games are all important and they all count the same,” observed starting QB Drew Willy, “but obviously the way the West is stacking up, it’s a big game.

“But the next seven games are all going to be big.”

• Bombers centre Steve Morley was fined by the CFL on Thursday for punching Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive lineman John Chick near the end of last Sunday’s game.

Morley was ejected from the game after the incident and said Thursday it was the first episode of its kind for him in 20 years of playing football.

“You never want to get thrown out of the game but sometimes in the heat of the moment things happen. And that’s the first time that’s ever happened to me.”

— Wiecek