The Edmonton Elks are finding a way to return to respectability in what initially looked like a lost season.
McLeod Bethel-Thompson threw a pair of touchdown passes as the Elks defeated the Calgary Stampeders 37-16 on Saturday to leapfrog their Alberta rivals into fourth place in the CFL’s West Division.
Edmonton (5-8) has now won five of its last six games after a woeful 0-7 start to the season that included firing Chris Jones and bringing in Jarious Jackson as the interim head coach.
“It feels great,” Jackson said. “Especially with the type of season we have been having. We’ve turned it around these last five or six games and to be where we are, that is pretty exciting.”
It was the first time that Edmonton has swept the home-and-home Labour Day series with Calgary in 20 years, going back to 2004.
“I think it is awesome,” said Elks receiver Eugene Lewis, who led the team with 97 yards and a touchdown. “It is awesome for this organization, it is awesome for these fans and it’s awesome for us. It’s a big rivalry. It’s huge. It is something we wanted to accomplish and we believed it, we knew that we could do it.”
Calgary (4-8) has now lost four straight for the first time since 2004 — a span of 331 games. The Stampeders have yet to win a game on the road, dropping to 0-6 away from home.
“I need to step back and figure out what is going to resonate and who is going to listen and who is willing to put in the hard work,” said Stampeders head coach Dave Dickenson. “It’s not going to change overnight, though. Right now we are not a good football team, we are not doing a lot of things well. We are doing very little well.”
The game started with Edmonton recording a pair of punt singles, with a 32-yard field goal by Calgary’s Rene Paredes sandwiched in-between.
The Stampeders then marched all the way down to the Edmonton six-yard line, but quarterback Logan Bonner was intercepted in the end zone by Loucheiz Purifoy.
The Elks started the second quarter with a huge play as Bethel-Thompson sent a deep pass to Hergy Mayala for what turned into a 60-yard touchdown play. The two-point convert pass to Lewis was also good.
Calgary responded with a 42-yard field goal by Paredes.
Edmonton made it 17-6 midway through the second as Bethel-Thompson handed it off to receiver Tevin Jones on a wide sweep for a 13-yard scamper into the end zone.
The Elks got a 41-yard field goal from Boris Bede with a minute to play and then added another from 20 yards out to close out the first half after an interception by Nick Anderson.
Calgary got the first points after a sluggish start to the third by both teams, adding a 46-yard Paredes field goal with 3 ½ minutes remaining in the third quarter.
Edmonton countered with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Lewis to start the fourth quarter.
A Calgary third-down gamble failed with just under 10 minutes to play deep in Edmonton territory, but the Stamps would end up getting their first major score of the game a few minutes later anyway, as Bethel-Thompson was intercepted by defensive lineman Mike Rose, and he took it back 83 yards for the touchdown.
Bethel-Thompson was injured on the play and didn’t return to the game.
Calgary turned over the ball on downs again, this time on their own 21-yard line, with three minutes to play, quickly leading to a five-yard touchdown run by Justin Rankin.
Bonner was picked off for a fourth time with just under two minutes to play as he was intercepted by Devodric Bynum at the Edmonton 27-yard line and then a fifth time by Bynum again in the end zone as time expired.