ARGONAUTS.CA STAFF

TORONTO – There was one bright light in the Argos loss Friday night to the B.C. Lions and it came in the way of KR/WR Chad Owens who set one Argo record, pulled closer to another and came up just short of a league record.

Owens finished the night with 4 kickoff returns for 245 yards which set an Argos single-game record for most kickoff return yards in franchise history.  The previous mark was set in 2008 when Dominique Dorsey set the mark with 243.

A bulk of his totals came on an electrifying 96-yard kickoff return with 6:33 left in the game to pull the Argos to within 10 of the Lions.  The return would move him into a tie with Jimmy ‘The Jet’ Cunningham and Dorsey for third on the all-time career kick return touchdowns list with five.  Michael ‘Pinball’ Clemons sits in second with 8 and Bashir Levingston remains comfortably in first with 14.

"I think our the difference was our execution", Owens said after the game.  "Osh had a great plan for us.  Once we hit them with a pretty good boundary , we hit the with a good field [return] and that sort of softened them up a little bit.  We had a good plan and we executed it well."

The second-year Argo had come close all night on both punt and kickoff returns and the lanes were opening up.  It was something that had been frusterating him up until the touchdown but he had a feeling it was going to come.

"I definitely felt it was going to pop shortly. I said [to myself] I was going to get one tonight", he said.

Following a Lions field goal, Owens had one more shot to make his mark on the record books.  With 1:33 left on the clock, Owens sat just 12 yards shy of a Canadian Football League record for most kickoff return yards in a single game but the Leos elected to boot a short kick which landed into the hands of LB Anthony Cannon.

Another record was set Friday night as both Toronto and B.C. combined for a new CFL single-game record for most kickoffs with 13 and most kickoff return yards with 423.

Owens finished the night with 245 kickoff return yards, 48 punt return yards, 16 receiving yards and the aforementioned major, totaling 329 all-purpose yards – a category that he still leads the league in.

Despite his brilliant performance, he was less than satisfied when the game ended saying, "I would give up the yards, the touchdown, all of that for a ‘W’ in a heartbeat".

Owens and the Argos will try to correct what went wrong against the Lions when they travel to Vancouver next week to close out the home-and-home and Empire Field.