OTTAWA — All the Ottawa Redblacks can do now is sit and wait following a record-breaking performance Friday.
William Powell ran in a 43-yard touchdown in the game's final minute as the Redblacks rallied to a 41-36 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to take the lead in the Canadian Football League's East Division.
Trevor Harris threw two touchdown passes, Powell passed 1,000 yards rushing for the season and Diontae Spencer set a new league record with 496 all-purpose yards in the game for Ottawa (8-9-1).
Jeremiah Masoli threw four touchdown passes for the Tiger-Cats (5-12), who are playing out the string as they have been eliminated from the post-season.
The Redblacks, who have a bye next week, will finish the regular season in first in the division if the Argonauts lose to the B.C. Lions next week. A Toronto win or tie in the final week of the regular season will put the Argos in the East's top spot for the playoffs.
"It's big and it puts the ball back in their court and now they have to go out there and win on the west coast, so it was big to come out with a win," Redblacks coach Rick Campbell said of what lies ahead for the Argonauts.
"The bad news is it was not pretty and there's a lot of work to be done. They good news is (Hamilton) is a good football club and we made some mistakes and still found a way to beat them."
It was ugly as the Redblacks not only spotted the Tiger-Cats a 16-0 lead after the first quarter, but they also turned the ball over five times including twice in the red zone and once in the end zone.
All that means nothing though as Powell finished the game with 133 yards rushing and the season with 1,026, the first time a Redblacks player has surpassed the 1,000 mark.
"We showed we can be a resilient team and we need to carry that into the playoffs," said Powell, who downplayed the person accomplishment. "That means something but more importantly the win and regaining first place means more. We'll just see how it plays out, sit back and watch on our bye week and see what happens.
As for Spencer, a fumble on the Hamilton six-yard line late in the first half wasn't spoken about after the game.
What was discussed was his 133 receiving yards, 165 yards in kick-off returns, 169 more returning punts and 29 yards on a missed field goal.
"It feels amazing. I'm really just speechless and it doesn't feel like I've done anything really special but I guess once I get home it will sink in," said Spencer, who felt he was going to have a big night.
"The whole week I was going for 500. For some reason I felt good in practice, I was making plays on offence and I was just feeling it. I was going for 200 on offence but special teams just kind of came to me."
After the Ticats took a 16-0 lead in the first quarter the Redblacks clawed their way back to 19-14 at the half. Hamilton led 26-22 after three quarters before a firestorm in the fourth.
An eight-yard touchdown pass from Masoli to Luke Tasker at 6:02 of the fourth quarter gave the Tiger-Cats a 33-22 lead but Harris threw a 12 touchdown pass to Greg Ellingson with less than four minutes to play following an eight-yard touchdown run by Powell with just over five minutes to play for a 34-33 lead.
Kenny Allen gave Hamilton a 36-34 lead with a 43 yard-field goal at 13:35 before Powell scored his 43-yard run in the final minute to give the Redblacks the win and get over the 1,000 yard mark.
"It's my toughest loss so far and I'm sure the guys feel the same way," said Tiger-Cats coach June Jones, who is 5-4 since taking over an 0-8 team from Kent Austin.
"We made some plays but we gave up some big plays on all three phases of the game. All and all we had a chance to win the game and we just came up short."
The Tiger-Cats will close out the regular season next Friday at home against the Montreal Alouettes.
Darren Desaulniers, The Canadian Press
