Kackert, Ray and defense lead Toronto Argonauts to 100th Grey Cup victory

Chad Kackert and Ricky Ray put on a magical offensive show in front of the home crowd to lead the Toronto Argonauts to a 35-22 win over the Calgary Stampeders in the 100th Grey Cup at Rogers Centre.

Kackert amassed 133 rushing yards, 195 all-purpose yards on 28 touches.  For his efforts on the field, he was named game MVP.  This victory was an indescribable yet surreal feeling.

“I can’t explain this right now,” commented Kackert.  “It’s been one unbelievable journey and we made it.”

“You can’t think this up, you can’t write it either.  It’s a great end to a story; the next chapter is going to be starting pretty soon.  We did what we needed to do to get here, and you’ve seen the end result.”

Ray put in a strong outing for the Grey Cup Champions.  The pivot had 18 completions in 30 attempts for 231 passing yards and threw two touchdowns in the victory.  Coming from the Edmonton Eskimos via and offseason trade in December 2011, Ray said it was worthwhile.

“Coming to Toronto was just an opportunity for me, it’s great to be a part of it,” reflected Ray.  “We got hot at the right time.”

“Over the next few days, we’ll just feel so proud to be able to play in this 100th Grey Cup, in Toronto in front of our home fans.”

Once the Argos were able to gain the lead, the team never had to look back.

“We didn’t have to play with a lot of pressure on us offensively,” added the Argos pivot.  “We had the lead, pretty much the whole game.”

Defensively, the Argos limited Stampeders running back and league leading rusher Jon Cornish to 57 yards in the game while continually putting pressure on quarterback Kevin Glenn throughout the entire game.  Additionally in the first half, Argos defensive back Pacino Horne caught a 25 yard interception which gave the team a 24-6 lead going into halftime. Defensive end Ricky Foley was named Top Canadian in the game.

Early in the second half, the Stampeders had an 81 yard, nine drive play only to be able to muster a field goal.  Subsequent to that, league MVP Chad Owens returned the ball for 43 yards.

Afterwards, Argos kicker Swayze Waters was unsuccessful on a 15 yard field goal attempt.  However, due to a procedural call, Waters got another try, this time from 20 yards.  He was successful on the attempt and in turn, it increased the Argos lead to 27-9.  Ray connected with Andre Durie for an 8 yard touchdown score to seal the deal for the Argos in their quest to win the Grey Cup.

With 20 seconds remaining in the game, Maurice Price’s touchdown pass and two point conversion put some more points on the scoreboard for the Stampeders, but it was too little too late.

Owens and Dontrelle Inman also scored touchdowns for the Argos in the victory while Waters was successful on all conversions and booted two field goals.  Noel Prefontaine added a single for the victors.

The Stampeders came into the Grey Cup riding on a momentum high.  After starting the season at 3-4, they would win 13 of 15 games down the stretch.  Glenn quarterbacked the team to victory in nine games of the 14 starts he was given after starting pivot Drew Tate sustained an injury to his shoulder.  Tate returned in last week’s Western Final, only to get reinjured once again and Glenn came back to replace him.  Glenn led the Stampeders to an upset victory over the defending Grey Cup Champions BC Lions in that game.

However, the Stampeders were held to five first downs.  Also, Glenn had a rough outing as he registered five completions in 11 attempts and 141 passing yards.

“They battled through a lot of things and did some great things, they just didn’t do enough,” assessed Stampeders head coach John Hufnagel after the loss.  “That will be the underlying theme of this game; we didn’t put the ball in the end zone when we had the opportunity.”

“The emotions are high right now and I didn’t want to say anything that I didn’t have thought out.”

The Stampeders had difficulties mounting anything on the offensively and it was due to Argos defensive coordinator Chris Jones’ game execution plan which was successful.

“To put this together in such a short amount of time, it really speaks to our coaching staff, our players, Jim Barker,” said Jones, the former Stampeders assistant after the Grey Cup victory.

Argos defensive end Rickey Foley was named Top Canadian of the game.  He said it was a total team effort with catapulted the Argos to the historic Grey Cup win.

“As a testament to this team and what we became, it’s a bunch of guys just making plays out there,” commented Foley.  “There was so much hope and so much expectations going into training camp, man we just believed.”

Scott Milanovich, head coach of the Argos shared his thoughts of being victorious and what it meant to the entire team.

“Its how you finish and we finished; just got a lot of pride for these guys right now,” described Milanovich.  “The joy comes from seeing those players in the locker room.”

“It’s not even about the ring; it’s about the relationships and the sense of accomplishment that you get when you’re a champion. There’s nothing like it.”

Photo credits:  Mona Ghiz

(website: http://www.ghizphotos.ifp3.com/)

(twitter: http://twitter.com/vohra_ameeta)

 

 

Advocating for football prospects one story at a time.

Leave a Reply