The St. Paul Lions football team suffered a disappointing loss at the hands of the Bonnyville Voyageurs on Sept. 19 in St. Paul.
The game was scheduled to kickoff at 7 p.m., which meant most of the contest would be waged under the temporary lights that were brought to the field for the event.
The Voyageurs had the first big play of the day. On the Lions’ second offensive possession, they faced a first and ten from their own 45-yard line. They tried a pitch play to the right hand side, but the Voyageurs met the ball carrier in the backfield, stripped the ball, and ran it back for a long defensive touchdown.
Bonnyville later kicked a rouge for a single point, making the halftime score 8-0 for the visiting team.
The score remained the same until midway through the fourth quarter. With a little over six minutes remaining in the contest, St. Paul running back Donovan Campeau broke free on a long touchdown run that put the Lions two points away from a tied game.
“That was exciting,” head coach John Lumby said of the run after the game. “It was a huge run by him. He had to really fight hard for that, and then when he pulled away from the defence, it was awesome. He’s got some good breakaway speed.”
St. Paul quarterback Patrick Dion felt the run was just what the Lions needed to get back into the game. “I was feeling great,” he said in an interview after the game. “I was feeling like we were going to push through and get this win.”
Still down 8-6 with only 6:44 remaining in the game, the Lions elected to take a chance on a two-point conversion after the big run. With their offence lined up at the five-yard line, receiver Sam Tillapaugh stood over near the sideline, uncovered. The ball was snapped, and Dion tossed Tillapaugh the ball, which he easily caught to tie up the game at 8-8.
“That was great,” Dion said. “I saw him wide open. Usually there’s someone covering him when we’re doing slants, but I just lobbed it in and there was no one there.”
The tie, however, was as close as the Lions would come to victory on the day. Bonnyville soon scored a rouge on a bobbled punt in the Lions’ end zone, which awarded them a single point and a new lead. They would pull away even further with a late-game touchdown, earning them a 16-8 victory.
“Bonnyville had a few nice passes that worked for them,” Lumby said of the Voyageurs’ late-game offence.
“I was proud of everybody,” Dion said of his teammates after the game. “We’ve got to keep our heads up, go to practice and get better.”
The loss puts the Lions at 0-2 when counting only their regular season games. They play another exhibition game in Vermillion on Friday, Sept. 26, and like his quarterback, coach Lumby hopes that another week of practice will help the team get better.
“We just want to keep improving each week, and become as good a team as we can be,” he said.
