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Three straight losses to teams starting their back-up quarterbacks has the Saskatchewan Roughriders reeling.

The Green & White lost their third straight game on Sunday night, falling 24-22 to the BC Lions on a last second field goal by former Rider Paul McCallum.  That puts their record at 8-4 after an 8-1 start to the season, and they're now tied with BC for second in the West Division.

McCallum's game winning field goal from 42 yards out as time expired came just 38 seconds after the Riders put together a lengthy touchdown drive that ended with Darian Durant hitting Weston Dressler for an eight-yard touchdown and a 22-21 lead.

“I don't think there's any such thing as too much time,” said Durant on whether or not they scored too quickly at the end of the game.  “You just have to take points when you get them and hindsight's always 20/20.”

The game was filled with missed opportunities for the Riders.  They had great field position throughout the first half, but weren't able to score until the final play from scrimmage when Durant found Chris Garrett down the sidelines for a 37-yard touchdown that gave them an 9-6 lead.

Chris Milo connected on two second half field goals (15 and 47 yards), but he also had two hit off the uprights that left the Riders without any points from those drives.

“Chances of the ball hitting the goal post are very slim, so for it to happen twice in one game, you try not to think about that,” said Durant.

“Points off turnovers of turnovers are key, we got down there and missed out on a couple opportunities for singles with the ball going off the goal posts, so we got down there and didn't score when we were at the five-yard line.  It's all about missed opportunities and we didn't capitalize.”

The first half started slow for the Riders.  They had great field position for the opening drive after McCallum's kick-off went out of bounds, but they fumbled two plays later giving up the ball in their own end.  The defence was able to hold the Lions to a field goal.

The score stayed at 3-0 for the Lions until the second quarter when Ricky Schmitt picked up a couple of rouge singles to pull the Riders within one.

Another McCallum field goal gave the Lions a 6-2 advantage late in the quarter, but the Riders offence finally came alive.  They drove down the field only to have Milo's field goal attempt hit off the upright and keep the score at 6-2.

After another two-and-out forced by the defence, the Riders offence connected with Durant hitting Garrett for the late score and a 9-6 lead at halftime.

The third quarter was all BC outside of Milo's 15-yard field goal on the Riders first drive of the quarter.  The Lions picked up back-to-back touchdowns, first Thomas DeMarco found Nick Moore for a 43-yard score and then he hit Shawn Gore two plays after a Durant fumble for a 20-12 lead. 

The Riders regained the lead in the fourth quarter on the Durant to Dressler touchdown, but it was short lived as DeMarco led the Lions down the field quickly, making some clutch plays – including a 15-yard pass to Courtney Taylor on third-and-10 at the Saskatchewan 50 – to set up McCallum's winning field goal.

“Everybody did their jobs, everybody properly executed, but honestly they just made plays at the end of the game,” said defensive end Ricky Foley, who had two sacks in the game.  “Hats off to (DeMarco) he was getting hit on that last drive and he was making plays with somebody in his face.”

For the second straight week, the game came down to the wire for the Riders and they were unable to make the plays to seal the win.  The losses seem to be mounting on the team as well with a pretty quiet locker room after Sunday's game.

“We've got to get back to playing good football,” said head coach Corey Chamblin.  “We've got to all go back, all three phases, and reevaluate where we are and what we're doing.”

With Kory Sheets out, the Riders' offence became one dimensional with only 12 running plays the whole game.  Garrett had just 30 yards on nine carries, but added seven catches for 64 yards.

Durant finished 35-for-52 passing with 326 yards and two touchdowns, but a lot of the completions were short with not many yards after the catch outside Taj Smith's 32-yard catch on their final drive.

“They take pride in keeping everything in front of them and coming up and making tackles, they're a veteran group and that's what they do,” said Durant on the receivers in ability to break free from the Lions' secondary.

Smith was Durant's top target in the game as he finished with ten catches for 104 yards.  Geroy Simon had a strong game with five catches – four of them for first downs – and 60 yards.  He also tied Ben Cahoon's all-time record for catches in the game.

“The record is great and all, but I've been playing long enough to know it was going to come, so it's great, but I want to win,” said Simon after the game.

“We've got to take care of business, it was a tough game and we could have played better in a lot of different spots, but we've just got to keep grinding.  I think we have the pieces to do that, but we've got to implement it.”

DeMarco went 16-of-33 for 208 yards and two touchdowns in his first career start to pick up the win over the Riders.  Buck Pierce played a series in the second quarter, completing 2 passes for 16 yards.  Gore was BC's top receiver with six catches for 74 yards.

The Riders will now have to try to get back on track from the road as they will be in Montreal and BC for their next two games.  They return to the practice field on Wednesday at Mosaic Stadium.

Game Notes: Linebackers Weldon Brown (knee) and Diamond Ferri (illness) were both late scratches from the game after being on the roster initally.  Patrick Neufeld left the game with a leg injury and Carlos Thomas was also injured in the fourth quarter.  Chamblin didn't have updates on either player after the game.