The Bisons football team secured a tight 35-31 victory over the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds on Saturday, Oct. 4 at the Princess Auto Stadium.

The game opened with a strong first quarter for the Bisons. A team safety at 13:28 gave the Bisons an early 2-0 lead. Bisons quarterback Jackson Tachinski followed up with a one-yard run at 7:52 to make it 9-0. The Thunderbirds got on the board with a 35-yard field goal from Alexander Hillyard at 4:27, cutting the lead to 9-3. Another Bisons safety at 0:23 of the quarter pushed the score to 11-3.

The Bisons continued to dominate in the second quarter. Running back Noah Anderson made a seven-yard run at 13:42 to extend the Bisons’ advantage to 18-3. Tachinski made a two-yard run at 6:39 for the Bisons, widening the score to 25-3. At the 2:31 mark, kicker Maya Turner scored a 28-yard field goal to give the Bisons a 28-3 lead at halftime.

The Thunderbirds mounted a comeback in the second half. Toluwalope Ayedegbe made a two-yard run at 10:29 in the third quarter to reduce the deficit to 28:10. Shemar McBean connected to a one-yard from Drew Viotto at 4:41 for the Thunderbirds, bringing the score to 28-17.

At the 13:25 mark of the fourth quarter, Thunderbirds’ Trey Montour caught an 11-yard pass from Viotto to close the gap to 28-24. Montour connected to a 15-yard pass from Viotto at 5:55 to give the Thunderbirds a 31-28 lead. The Bisons bounced back as Tachinski made a two-yard run at 2:03 to record a 35-31 win for the Bisons.

Bisons football head coach Stan Pierre credited his players for the victory, but urged them to stay fully focused in high-stakes games like this one. “The message is that they have to be assignment-sound and do what they’re told on every play for the entire game,” said Pierre.  “At this level, to lose focus in a game like that, when it’s a head-to-head opponent that we’ve played twice, is really inexcusable […] I give them credit, they came out like gangbusters, but we did a lot of bad things in that second half.”

He detailed the events of the second half that shifted momentum away from the team. “The pass rush was one. We had lots of times […] we had brought pressure and it got home and we didn’t make the tackle. They extended plays, and they have some really skilled guys back there. When you extend plays, it becomes really difficult. It’s tough to say totally without seeing the film […] And then we had some busts. We also were short-handed, and we don’t have the type of depth to go six or seven or eight guys deep in the secondary and expect not to have some hiccups with guys who haven’t played before. So that was also part of it, too. My guess is it’s going to be a combination of those things when I look at it.”

Tachinski acknowledged that while the team struggled to execute certain aspects of their game plan, they remained resilient despite the Thunderbirds’ second half performance. “I didn’t see much [giving] up. Obviously, they were scoring a lot of points, and they were on a roll, but I still think our guys were into the game. We still wanted to win, we still had a fire in our bellies. I don’t think much changed, but I just think we weren’t executing to our best ability on the field. We were missing assignment here, assignment there, and it’s a trickle-down effect.”

He expressed confidence that his teammates will rise to the occasion when needed and emphasized his belief in the coaching staff. “Our team is that good, that I believe in them, that I can put my body on the line and I know they’re going to step up. [I have] belief in that team that I have, belief in my teammates, belief in my coaches. I don’t really have another option than to play injured and to try to be on the field with them.”

Defensive back Daniel Conway highlighted the significance of the victory for the team. “Now we’re three and three. We’re up and we’re looking pretty good going to the biweek. If things didn’t go our way, and they looked like they weren’t going our way for a bit, we’d be in a [much] tougher position, but it feels good.”

In the league standings, the Bisons football team has six points, with three wins and three losses from six games.

The Bisons football team will host the Calgary Dinos on Saturday, Oct. 18, 1 p.m. CT, at the Princess Auto Stadium.