Box Score On the road against a ranked U SPORTS team, the Manitoba Bisons found a way to earn their first football win of the 2017 Canada West season with a 18-16 victory over the #6 Regina Rams on Saturday, September 23 at Mosaic Stadium.

Manitoba improves to 1-3 on the season and into fifth place while Regina drops to 2-2 and third place in CW.

The Herd had an impressive defensive effort against one of the top offence in the country (2016 Hec Creighton winner was Rams' QB Noah Picton) and bounced back from a tough 76-17 effort in the annual Homecoming Game vs. Calgary (Sept. 16/17).

'Very proud of the effort from the whole team to bounce back from the Homecoming loss," commented Brian Dobie, Bison Football head coach. "Our defence came to play and shut down Regina for a whole half and made big stops when they needed to in the second half." 

Manitoba had a fantastic first half as they stopped the high-octane Rams as they did not allow a single point en route to a 15-0 lead after 30 minutes.

The half was highlighted by two interceptions by new safety starter Jayden McKoy as he snuffed out a potential TD drive by Regina to end the second and also had a pick six with a 47 yard interception return for a TD to start the second quarter. The visitors also added two Brad Mikoluff field goals (32, 11), James Mau made another interception to stop another drive and a safety given up by Regina for the big lead.

In the second, Regina started to find some rhythm but Manitoba kept them a 22 yarder FG and a team safety and Mikoluff added his third from 34 yards out for a 18-8 lead halfway through the fourth.

The home side finally found the end zone after a quick 56 yard strike by Picton to Mitchell Picton to set-up a one yard plunge by backup QB Frankie Gray.

Then, the Rams had two drives late to try and score but the BIsons defence was equal to the task to force them to long fields and had a timely sack by Houston Rennie to force a single point on a last second field goal and preserve the road win.

Manitoba had a stellar game again by multi-facet Jamel Lyles as he racked up 77 rush yards, 58 receiving yards and 72 punt return yards for 207 all-puropse yards. Des Catellier made his first ever U SPORTS debut at quarterback and went a solid 18-29 for 212 yards with 1 INT and thre completions to eight different receivers in spreading the ball around.. Riley Harrison added four catches for 37 yards. On special teams, the Herd was led by Mikoluff with 3-4 in FGs and Matt Riley with a sparkling 44.0 punt yard average in eight attempts.

On defence, McKoy finished with 3.5 tackles and two picks while Rennie and Mau had team-high 7.5 tackles. Even more impressive was the total defence effort in limiting the Rams to only 16 points (Rams averaged 30 pts/game prior this contest) and only 378 yards on offence.
 
The Bisons now return home for a unique afternoon start at Investors Group Field. Manitoba (1-3) host Alberta Golden Bears (0-4) on Friday, September 29 at 4:30 p.m. CT and tickets available at all Ticketmaster locations, ticketmaster.ca and at IGF.

Bison Notes: With the win, Brian Dobie (1996-present) earned his 100th overall coaching win at Manitoba in his 193rd overall game (88-82-1: regular season; 12-10: playoffs record).