It wasn't pretty, but the 91原创 Rams won their fourth straight football game, clinching a spot in the post-season in the process.
The Rams broke open a tight game at the half 鈥� they were leading 3-0 鈥� to score 10 points in the third quarter against the host Chilliwack Huskers on Saturday night at Exhibition Stadium.
The teams traded fourth quarter touchdowns with the Rams prevailing 20-7.
The win improved the junior football team to 4-3 while the Huskers dropped to 0-7.
"We went out there, we played real hard, our effort wasn't what we would have liked it to have been, but the end result definitely was," said Rams coach Jeff Alamolhoda.
Part of the Huskers game plan was to keep the ball away from Nick Downey on punt and kick returns by kicking the ball out of bounds.
While it did keep the dynamic kick returner from making plays, the Chilliwack kicking game averaged just nine yards on kick-offs and 16 yards on punts.
Of Downey's dozen touchdowns 鈥� he scored once against Chilliwack on a 60-yard pass reception 鈥� three have come on kickoffs and one other on a punt return. He also came into the game averaging 51 and 15.2 yards, respectively, on the two types of returns.
"Hats off to the (Huskers), they created some game plans and schemes that were effective against us," Alamolhoda said.
He would have liked to have seen his team take better advantage offensively of their great starting field position.
"I think we would have liked our team to be executing a little crisper and a little faster on the field," Alamolhoda said. "It is important that we have the ability to sustain drives and put points on the board with our offence and not rely on special teams to be doing that."
Brandon Leyh was 6-for-13 for 93 yards and one touchdown passing and another rushing, while Jon Roney was 4-for-5 for 35 yards.
Daniel English and Downey each hauled in three passes for 49 and 76 yards, respectively.
The ground game churned out 175 yards, with Kyle Albertini (77 yards) and Leyh (54 yards) doing the bulk of the damage.
The defence held Chilliwack to 214 yards of net offence, including just 53 yards rushing.
Alamolhoda said while the defence was solid, they did display poor tackling.
It didn't help that after a summer of nice weather, they were playing in rainy conditions on a sloppy field for the first time.
"Our guys just weren't used to the angles and the field conditions, so they were sliding all over the place and missing tackles and just weren't diligent in taking the guy down," he said.
"They were looking for the big hit as opposed to just wrapping up and bringing the carrier down."
Nick Naylor also kicked two field goals.
The Rams have their home finale on Saturday at McLeod Park (4 p.m.) when they host Victoria's Westshore Rebels (3-4).
