When the Toronto Blue Jays open their postseason run against the Yankees Saturday, the University of Regina Rams will try to hit a home run of their own into the playoffs with a win over the University of Calgary Dinos at Mosaic Stadium in CanWest football.
In a game that will be heard live on 620 CKRM, a win would put the Rams, who are ranked sixth in Canada for a second straight week, at 5-1 for the first time since 2010 and nail down a playoff spot with two regular season games remaining.
Ram running back Marshall Erichsen enters the week as the number two rusher in the country and set a new school record with four rushing touchdowns against Calgary earlier this season and says despite their 2-3 record, the Dinos are a tough out.
“They’re a hard-hitting defence and they have big front seven so my goal is to break through that front seven as quick as I can,” Erichsen said. He’s been getting a lot of attention lately with his 145 yards rushing per game average through week 5 but swears he hasn’t been paying much attention to who’s ahead of him (Western Ontario Mustang Ethan Dolby) or the crazy running stats that have been powering the Ram offence to four wins in their first five games.
“We run the ball a lot. Mark (McConkey) and (offensive coordinator) Jaeden Marwick try to get us the ball in open space. C.K. (Christian Katende, the other running back) and I pride ourselves on being people who can make something happen when our number is called. It’s not really about the rushing yards. I’m happy to catch a ball and try to get a passing touchdown as well. Just anything we can do to help the team and we’re happy to do it.”
With eight rushing touchdowns this season, Erichsen is one away from tying the school record shared by Neal Hughes and Adrian Charles.
The U of R has a 6-1 record against Calgary under head coach Mark McConkey and the last five Ram-Dino games have all been decided by one possession, including an overtime thriller on opening night at McMahon Stadium back in August. The coach says he and his staff coach their best players, like Erichsen, the hardest.
“We keep him pretty humble. He still makes mistakes, and we correct him. There’s always room to get better,” McConkey said. “A focus for us this year is the run game and establishing that early. We’ve found that if you don’t have a run game like we saw in the first quarter of the last game, that’s where we struggle a little bit so our first priority is to run the ball.”
The Rams have scored an average of 35.4 points per game, tops in Canada West. Regina enters the weekend tied with the Saskatchewan Huskies for first place while the Huskies hold the tiebreaker. The Calgary Dinos are in a three-way logjam with Manitoba and UBC for third, fourth and fifth place with at least one of those teams likely to miss the playoffs. Dinos head coach Ryan Sheahan tells the sportscage his squad isn’t in must-win territory yet but admits they are running out of time with just three games left including Saturday.
“If we win all three, we’re in great shape. Win two and we’re in good shape. Win one and well, we’ll see,” Sheahan said.
If the Rams win and UBC loses, Regina will clinch a home playoff game. A U of R win and Saskatchewan loss would fuel the Rams into first place heading into the bye week.
It’s also alumni week so both the 1975 national junior champions and 2000 Vanier Cup final Ram teams will be honoured. A cloudy afternoon is forecast for Regina with a high of 17 degrees celsius and very little wind or chance of rain in the forecast. The 620 CKRM broadcast will start with the pregame show at 1:45 and kickoff at 2:00.
