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It was Lights Out night at Mosaic Stadium and there were very few bright spots for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The Riders lost their fifth straight game at Mosaic Stadium on Friday after a 47-yard field goal from Elks kicker Sergio Castillo gave Edmonton a 26-24 victory.
“I’m pretty frustrated just when you don’t play the way you want to play,” said Riders quarterback Cody Fajardo. “I feel like the whole world is basically against us and it’s OK because the guys in that locker room are trying to stick together.”
Saskatchewan’s last win at home came on July 8 against the Ottawa Redblacks.
The Riders’ offence was also met with boos from the crowd during the second half; Saskatchewan trailed for much of that 30 minutes.
“I’ll be honest, it wasn’t great when you hear your own fans booing you, especially when you’re at home when you need great energy and a good crowd,” Fajardo said. “It hurt but we ended up scoring and gave them something to cheer about at the end but unfortunately weren’t able to make it happen.
“That was a tough one because I felt like a lot of people gave up on us.”
Head coach Craig Dickenson had a blunt assessment of the contest.
“Disappointing, poor, not certainly up to our standard,” he said. “It’s been a tough year. We’re not ready to throw in the towel yet — that’s my positive spin on this. We’re still going to keep working but this team has gone through a lot of adversity and it’s worn down right now a little bit.
“I think the guys in (the locker room) are beat up, they’re tired and we’re not playing well. I think when you add all those factors in on a group that is really on their last legs, their confidence is down.”
The Elks and Riders both entered the game with 2-6-0 records over their previous eight games, and the Elks had a 3-10-0 record — tied for the worst record in the CFL. It had been an up-and-down season for the Riders, who are 6-8-0 after starting the season at 4-1-0.
“We’re not very good. That’s an obvious statement here but we weren’t that good even at 4-and-1. We just got a little bit of a jump on people, I felt. We haven’t played up to our abilities and we haven’t played up to our potential and we’ve got to do a better job,” Dickenson said.
Fajardo, who became a dad on Wednesday, had a great start to the game, completing seven of his first eight pass attempts. That included a touchdown toss to Shaq Evans.
And with just 1:08 remaining in the game, Fajardo connected on a seven-yard TD pass to slotback Brayden Lenius. Brett Lauther’s convert put Saskatchewan ahead 24-23.
Fajardo finished the game with 20 completions on 27 attempts for 230 yards and two touchdowns.
Thanks to the play of quarterback Taylor Cornelius, who had signed a two-year extension earlier in the week, the Elks left Saskatchewan with a win.
After the Lenius touchdown, Cornelius drove the Eskimos 38 yards in four plays to set up Castillo’s game-winning kick.
Cornelius had 237 passing yards, a touchdown pass to Dillon Mitchell, and a rushing score as well.
The Elks’ offence had 202 yards on the ground — 93 from Cornelius and 109 yards from Kevin Brown – and 423 yards of total offence.
This comes a week after the Riders’ defence gave up 54 points to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“I wouldn’t say anything is going but we just haven’t played our best,” said linebacker Darnell Sankey, who had four tackles and a forced fumble in the loss. “Nobody cares if we’re hurt or how we feel, the only thing that matters is that we produce. We didn’t produce and this is where we are.”
Lauther hit three of his five field-goal attempts, with one of his misses resulting in a single. Castillo was good on four of his five attempts.
The Riders’ pass protection, which statistically is the worst in the league, gave up eight sacks in the loss.
“The eight sacks are on the offence and however we can slice and dice it up, we will. There are some where the O-line needs to do better, there’s some where our quarterback needs to step up as opposed to step out and there’s some that are scheme-related,” Dickenson said. “There’s plenty of blame to go around and we will try to figure it out.
“Our quarterback is taking too many hits. Some of them he’s getting are ones he doesn’t need to take if he’d stay in there a little longer but other ones he’s getting hit because of a mistake up front and a malfunction somewhere along the offensive line.”
Saskatchewan now heads into its second bye week of the season.
“We’ve got four games left and it’s not like we just got eliminated from playoff contention, we are still very much in the hunt. If we punch our ticket into the playoffs, a lot of teams will be afraid of us,” Fajardo said.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity. One day, maybe I’ll write a book on it because I don’t think you guys know half of what is going on in that locker room throughout this entire year and the way that these guys have responded and continued to stay together has been pretty inspirational.”
Dickenson added the organization will evaluate where this group is at during the time off.
“We’re going to work hard this week, (general manager Jeremy O’Day) and I and (assistant GM Kyle Carson), and we will try to figure out where we can get a little bit better,” Dickenson said.
“The reality is you’re not going to be able to bring in a bunch of dudes at this time of the year but we’ve got to try to get better with the guys we’ve got and if we can add a guy here or there that gives us a little spark, we will.
“We’re hosting (the Grey Cup) this year and we want to try to be in it any way possible. We will have to play a lot better going forward.”
