Although his B.C. Lions suffered a season-ending 35-9 loss to the Calgary Stampeders on Sunday, coach Jeff Tedford still had words of encouragement for his players afterwards.
The Lions won two of their final three regular-season games just to qualify for the CFL playoffs with a 7-11 record before losing the West Division semifinal to the Stamps in front of an announced crowd of 26,306 fans at McMahon Stadium.
"We have a lot of good players who worked through some adversity," said Tedford. "I'm really proud of this team. It looked bleak there for a while. They kept believing and made the playoffs. We have a ways to go. There's no question about that."
Tedford took over as B.C.'s head coach this season from Mike Benevides, who was fired after the Lions lost 50-17 to the Montreal Alouettes in the first round of last year's CFL playoffs.
Richie Leone kicked his first of three field goals at 11:07 of the first quarter to put the Lions up 3-1, which was the only time they led on Sunday.
Calgary defensive back Keon Raymond then picked off an errant pass by starting B.C. quarterback Jonathon Jennings and ran it back for a 38-yard touchdown to put the Stamps ahead for good at 13:38 of the first.
"I don't think it was that deflating," said Tedford in regards to Raymond's return. "It's not something that you want to happen. There was still a lot of football left. It was a close game there for a while even after that. I think the key was field position. I don't know how many times we started inside our 15-yard line tonight. We could never get out of the hole."
Veteran B.C. defensive back Ryan Phillips also gave the Stamps credit for a well-deserved win.
"They were a disciplined team tonight," said Phillips. "They executed in all facets of the game. They were more aggressive throughout 60 minutes. They did what it took to win the game and it showed up on the scoreboard."
Things went from bad to worse for the Lions when Jennings left the game in the second quarter with an injury that turned out to be a broken collarbone.
"We didn't know it as the time when he came off the field because he came off like there was nothing wrong, but every time he moved they could feel his collarbone moving," said Tedford. "He's competed very hard for us through the latter part of the year and has done a very nice job. It's just unfortunate he went down like that."
Jennings completed four-of-seven passes for 56 yards before Travis Lulay went 10 for 18 for 119 yards in a relief effort.
"We put ourselves behind the eight ball a lot of ways and Calgary's too good a football team to do that against," said Lulay. "They took advantage of their opportunities and they were the better team today."
Lulay missed most of the last two months of the season with a knee injury he suffered in early December. Like Tedford, the veteran quarterback was impressed to see how the Lions rallied just to qualify to play in the post-season.
"I was proud to see the team mature a lot as the season went on," he said.
"We were a better team the last third of the season than we were at the beginning. That's what gave us some confidence and some life coming into the playoffs, but it didn't happen for us. It wasn't meant to be."
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.