MONTREAL — The Montreal Alouettes suffered defeat for the first time in 300 days — and lost their star quarterback in the process.
Cody Fajardo exited with an injury as the Toronto Argonauts snapped Montreal’s unbeaten run with a 37-18 victory Thursday.
Montreal (5-1) lost its first game since falling to Toronto on Sept. 15 last season, ending a club-record 13-game run, including playoffs and the Grey Cup.
Fajardo left at the end of the first quarter after throwing an incomplete pass before heading to the locker room at Molson Stadium holding his hamstring. The Grey Cup MVP was hurried five times, hit twice and sacked twice prior to his early departure.
“He didn’t finish the game and that tells you something,” Als head coach Jason Maas said of Fajardo’s status. “We’ll get that imaged and looked at, and then we’ll have a time frame for his return. Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later.”
Caleb Evans took over for the last three quarters, going 12-of-22 for 127 passing yards, two TD passes and two interceptions.
Meanwhile, Toronto (3-2) broke a two-game skid that started with a 30-20 defeat to the Alouettes on June 28 and evened the season series against its East Division rival.
Cameron Dukes compiled 131 passing yards with one TD on 16-for-20 completions after throwing four picks in last week’s 30-23 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
But it was Janarion Grant who sparked the Argos with a 103-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the dying moments of the first half. It was the third-longest kick return in the franchise’s long history.
In a game where neither offence was clicking on all cylinders, Toronto head coach Ryan Dinwiddie called it “the impact play of the game.”
“Their quarterback’s not playing, our quarterback’s not playing that well,” he said. “So the other units got to pick it up and we did.”
Late in the second quarter, the Alouettes brought the score within two points after running back Walter Fletcher sliced and diced through the Argos defence for a 50-yard rush that set up Tyson Philpot for the Canadian wideout’s league-leading fifth TD reception.
But after the Alouettes missed the two-point conversion, Grant pulled off the kick-return TD to put Toronto up 24-15 at halftime and squash Montreal’s momentum.
“I just saw space and opportunity,” Grant said. “So I had to run like it was a racetrack, you feel me?
“And get to it.”
With Fajardo out, the Alouettes barely stood a chance of mounting a comeback.
Montreal had only one first down, 13 offensive plays and 32 net yards with Evans under centre in the second half. The home team also possessed the ball for only eight minutes.
Maas said despite the ugly numbers, he has confidence in his backup should Fajardo miss time.
“I trust our guys and I trust the guys we have behind them to go in there and do the job,” Maas said. “We won games without (Fajardo) last year.”
The sluggish Alouettes were coming off a five-day break after beating the Calgary Stampeders 30-26 on Saturday, but Maas wouldn’t use that as an excuse.
“Is football meant to be played on five days rest? I don’t believe (so). That’s my opinion, but we have to do it,” he said. “Did that contribute to what we did tonight? I don’t want to look at it that way. I like to give the other teams credit. We didn’t do enough to win the night.”
The Saskatchewan Roughriders (4-0), who visit the B.C. Lions on Saturday, are the only remaining undefeated CFL team this season.
Dinwiddie said the Argos weren’t taking any pride in handing the defending champs their first loss of the season.
“Hell no, not at all,” he said. “We just needed to get 1-0, and then get to 3-2 and get back in it.
“Yeah, they’re the best in the league right now, and we didn’t play our best football. They lost their quarterback, I get it. It’s not something to say, ‘Oh, yeah, we beat Cody.'”
Alouettes kicker Jose Maltos, replacing injured starter David Cote, went 1-for-2 on field goals, including a 50-yarder. He also scored a rouge on a missed attempt from 38 yards. Toronto’s Lirim Hajrullahu was 3-for-3.
The game started with a sloppy first quarter before the action picked up midway through the second.
Argos linebacker Wynton McManis kicked it off, intercepting an Evans pass and running it nine yards into the end zone to give Toronto a 10-2 lead at 7:55.
Evans responded with a 22-yard pass into the end zone for Charleston Rambo. The Argos made it 17-9 with 2:15 remaining when Dukes found Damonte Coxie for a 10-yard score.
Philpot then got then Montreal within two before Grant ran the length of the field for a 24-15 lead at the half.
“It was a fast transition, especially where the clock was at that time, right?” Dinwiddie said.
“Big, big play.”
UP NEXT
Alouettes: Host the Saskatchewan Roughriders on July 25 after a bye week.
Argos: Visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on July 20.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2024.
PARIS – Canada won its first Paralympic medal in women’s sitting volleyball and ended the country’s team sport podium drought Saturday.
The women’s volleyball team swept Brazil 3-0 (25-15, 25-18, 25-18) to take the bronze medal at North Paris Arena.
The women were the first Canadian side to claim a Paralympic medal in a team sport since the men’s wheelchair basketball team won gold in London in 2012.
“Oh my gosh, literally disbelief, but also, we did it,” said veteran Heidi Peters of Neerlandia, Alta. “It’s indescribable.”
Canada finished seventh in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and fourth in Tokyo three years ago.
Seven players of the dozen Canadians were Rio veterans and nine returned from the team in Tokyo.
Eleven were members of the squad that earned a silver medal at the 2022 world championship.
“I know how hard every athlete and every staff member and all of our family back home have worked for this moment,” captain Danielle Ellis said.
“It’s been years and years and years in the making, our third Paralympic Games, and we knew we wanted to be there.”
The women earned a measure of revenge on the Brazilians, who beat Canada for bronze in Tokyo and also in a pool game in Paris.
“There’s a lot of history with us and Brazil,” Peters acknowledged. “Today we just knew that we could do it. We were like, ‘This is our time and if we just show up and play our style of volleyball, serving tough and hitting the ball hard, the game will probably going our way.’ And it did.”
Calgary’s Jennifer Oakes led Canada with 10 attack points. Ellis of White Rock, B.C., and Peters each contributed nine.
Canada registered 15 digs as a team to Brazil’s 10.
“Losing to Brazil in the second game was tough,” Ellis said. “It just lit the fire beneath us.”
Canada’s men’s wheelchair basketball team fell 75-62 to Germany in the bronze-medal game in Paris.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2024.
PARIS – Canadian para canoeist Brianna Hennessy raced to her first Paralympic medal with a reminder of her mother on her paddle.
The 39-year-old from Ottawa took silver in the women’s 200-metre sprint Saturday in Paris.
The design on Hennessy’s paddle includes a cardinal in remembrance of her late mother Norma, the letter “W’ for Wonder Woman and a cat.
“My mother passed away last year, so I said I’d be racing down the course with her,” Hennessy said Saturday at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
“In our family, a cardinal represents what our love means. My mum was my Wonder Woman, and this is a cardinal rising up. This is our family pet that passed away two months after my mum, of cancer, because I think their love was together.
“All this represents so much to me, so it’s my passion piece for Paris.”
Hennessy finished just over a second behind gold medallist Emma Wiggs of Britain in the women’s VL2 Va’a, which is a canoe that has a support float and is propelled with a single-blade paddle.
Hennessy’s neck was broken when she was struck by a speeding taxi driver in Toronto in 2014 when she was 30. She has tetraplegia, which is paralysis in her arms and legs.
“This year’s the 10-year anniversary of my accident,” Hennessy said. “I should have been dead. I’ve been fighting back ever since.
“This is the pinnacle of it all for me and everything I’ve been fighting for. It made it all worth it.”
After placing fifth in her Paralympic debut in Tokyo three years ago, Hennessy was a silver medallist in the last three straight world championships in the event.
She will race the women’s kayak single Sunday. Hennessy and Wiggs have a tradition of hugging after races.
“I always talk about the incredible athletes here, and how the Paralympics means so much more because everyone here has a million reasons to give up, and we’ve all chosen to just go on,” the Canadian said. “It’s more about the camaraderie.”
Hennessy boxed and played hockey and rugby before she was hit by the taxi.
She was introduced to wheelchair rugby by the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre.
She eventually turned to paddling at the Ottawa River Canoe Club, which led her to the Paralympic podium in Paris.
“It has a good ring to it,” Hennessy said. “I’m so happy. I feel like we’ve had to overcome so much to get here, especially in the last year and a half. I’m just so proud.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2024.
