Edmonton Elks drop to 0-2 on season with 38-28 loss to Alouettes

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The Montreal Alouettes are off to their traditional solid start.

Tyson Philpot reeled in a pair of touchdown passes as the Alouettes remained perfect on the year with a 38-28 victory over the Edmonton Elks on Thursday.

Montreal is 3-0 to start the current campaign, and 9-0 in June over the past three seasons.

“You want to win them all, I don’t think we are conceding one. We prepare to win every week,” said Montreal head coach Jason Maas. “The expectations are very high in our locker room. We are going to continue to grind and to work to get better and to make this start count. We’ve played three games and won them all and want to continue down that trend.”

Quarterback Davis Alexander passed for 210 yards and three touchdowns before leaving the game in the third quarter with a hamstring injury.

“It’s just something I’ve been dealing with for a little bit,” he said. “It was kind of more cautionary to not go back into the game. We were up 24-6 going on a drive and we didn’t necessarily need the risk there.”

Edmonton is off to another poor start to the season, dropping to 0-2. The Elks were 0-7 to start last season and 0-9 in 2023.

However, they did manage to score 22 points in the final quarter to offer some hope going forward.

“We have fight on our football team,” said Elks head coach Mark Kilam. “We just got in a hole early, too many explosions on defence. That’s on the coaching staff, we’ve got to get that cleaned up.

“Our offence took a step tonight, which is a positive, but we’re still looking for that complete team effort.”

The Elks struck on their opening drive as Vincent Blanchard kicked a 42-yard field goal, welcome news after missing both attempts in his team’s first game.

Montreal answered right back on its first possession as Alexander marched down the field before connecting with Philpot on a six-yard touchdown pass.

The Alouettes added to their lead late in the first quarter as a 54-yard pass to Charleston Rambo set up a second strike to Philpot, this time a 13-yard TD reception.

Edmonton got a second field goal from Blanchard, from 32 yards, six minutes into the second.

Montreal almost had a third major after a long pass interference call against the Elks, but was forced to accept an 11-yard Jose Maltos field goal.

The Alouettes continued to dominate with a 38-yard bomb from Alexander to a wide-open Tyler Snead in the end zone with two minutes to play in the first half.

The Elks looked poised to cut into the lead just before the end of the first half but a long pass by starting quarterback Tre Ford into the end zone was intercepted by Kabion Ento to keep it 24-6.

There was definite cause for concern midway through the third as Alexander clutched his thigh while running after delivering a ball and went down. He left the game and didn’t return, with McLeod Bethel-Thompson coming in as his replacement.

After a punt single, Montreal added a 26-yard Maltos field goal to close out the third.

The Elks finally gave their crowd a reason to cheer to start the fourth as Ford took it in himself for an 18-yard rushing TD, adding a two-point convert pass to Justin Rankin.

Maltos responded with his third field goal from 32 yards before Montreal added a 23-yard rushing major from Sean Thomas-Erlington.

To its credit, Edmonton kept pushing as Ford found Kurleigh Gittens Jr. for a 33-yard touchdown with six minutes left and then went even deeper with a 51-yard TD bomb to Kaion Julien-Grant with 2:35 to play.

NOTES

Alexander is now 7-0 as a starting QB, tying Jeff Garcia and Bo Levi Mitchell for the second-best starts in CFL history. Danny McManus holds the record with an 8-0 record to launch his career … Ford passed the 300-completion and 4,000-yard marks for his career.

UP NEXT

Alouettes: Visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Friday, June 27.

Elks: Are in Winnipeg to face the Blue Bombers on Thursday, June 26.