WINNIPEG – In the final conference regular season football game at home, #8 Manitoba Bisons won 29-7 against the Alberta Golden Bears at the Investors Group Field on Friday, October 23 for their fourth consecutive win by Manitoba.

With the victory, the Bisons improve to 5-2 in 2015 while the Bears fall to 2-5 and now on a five game losing streak. 

Manitoba churned up 351 rushing yards (seventh most in team history) and did not have a turnover while not allowing a touchdown, for the first time this season, at home. Alberta finished with 492 offence yards.

The Bisons were led by a surprise start at quarterback as Foster Martens made his CIS debut. Martens, in his second year of eligibility, managed the game in an efficient 13-20 for 165 passing yards and 17 rushing yards.

"I was prepared and thought we did a good job on offence tonight," stated Martens. "Our OL stepped up in the second half and give them a lot of credit for the win."

The Bisons were paced with fullback touchdown runs by graduating player Matt Hallock with three yard and one yard plunges in the first quarter for a 14-0 lead. Another graduating fullback Andrew Barry had a 13 yard run to end the scoring in the fourth.

In between major scores, Alberta received field goals by Stephen Fabian from 13 and ten yards and rouge off a 35 yarder miss. Bison kicker Ryan Jones kicked his career high with a 49 yard field goal early in the fourth and added a 41 yarder with a safety given up the Bears to round out the scoring.

Individually for the hosts, Alex Christie had a game-high 103 rushing yards for Manitoba while seven different Bisons had a reception. Jamel Lyles added to his all-purpose totals with 181 yards (92 rush; 58 kickoff; 26 punt return; 5 receiving). David Onyemata had a game-high 9.5 total tackles with 1.5 sacks while Christian Turner added 7.5 tackles with 2.5 sacks in his first start for the Herd. 

Alberta had a strong game from quarterback Ben Kopczynski as he went 17-28 for 321 yards and registered 36 rushing yards on six carries. Ed Ilnicki added 94 rush yards and Jimmy Ralph went for 152 receiving yards with six grabs. Ryan Migadel and Brendan Friesen were top defenders with seven total tackles each. 

For the Bisons, they finished 2-2 at home while Alberta was 1-3 on the road in the 2015 campaign.

Alberta ends their regular season at home against #1 Calgary Dinos on Saturday, October 31 at 1 p.m. MT while the showdown for second place will happen when Manitoba plays at #9 UBC in week eight on Saturday, October 31 on 1 p.m. PT.