Durant Leads the Charge as Riders Grab Win vs Eskimos in Overtime

Saskatchewan Roughriders Fans had a lot to celebrate this Sunday.  If you were one of the lucky ones who took the advice of parieraucanada.ca/ regarding this particular CFL match, then you would’ve been on the edge of your seat the entire game, it wouldn’t have been an easy one to watch for sure, but what a game it was.  You want an example of some inspirational football?  2 minuets left on the clock and Darian Durant set up what would be the touchdown to bring the game into tie.  Not willing to let his team lose he decided to do the rest of the job on his own and scored the winning touchdown to give the Riders a 26-23 victory against the Edmonton Eskimos.

Trailing most of the second half, the Riders tied the game with Edwards touchdown, then following a field goal in overtime from Sean Whyte, Durant took it upon himself to get the job done, with a lightning fast six-yard touchdown to finish off the Eskimos.  This win is the second for the Riders this season and is surely a big boost for them as they rebuild a broken team, still reeling from losing the last three games off one possession.  In a much needed turn around, they exploited 2 defensive plays and scored at the right times throughout the game, crushing the Eskimos right at the end of the game. Veteran quarterback Durant finished the game passing 174 yards and intercepting 20 out of 29 passes to help give the Riders the victory.

Riders keep their season hopes hanging by a thread but at a major cost to the Eskimos 

While this victory has just about kept the Roughriders in the season, it has dealt a major blow to Edmonton.  They lose their third game straight and their chance of a spot in the playoffs gets smaller and smaller with every game.  After the game Durant reflected on the victory and why it was so important in the end, having been defeated twice already by the Eskimos in close games earlier in the season.  Just looking back on those games, I said to myself if I would have taken off in certain situations, I could have extended drives or maybe even resulted in a touchdown, I wasn’t going to let this one slip.”

He received heavy praise from head coach Chris Jones after the game also, “So many times when I’ve been here before or played against Darian, he gave us that element tonight and when we really needed it he showed up. When that confident Darian Durant shows up, he’s as tough as anybody.”  While the win will do little to affect their season so far, team wise they needed this win and showed what hard work and guts can get done when it’s needed with Jones adding “We’ve been unfortunately on the wrong end of some very close games where we didn’t make the play when we needed to, those guys have worked hard, they have a great belief system – even with our record the way it is – they’re fun to be around every day.”