The tailgate parties started early at McMahon Stadium as fans geared up to cheer on their teams at the annual Labour Day Classic and the Eskimos showed that they still have something left in the gas tank as they took it to the Stamps in the fourth quarter.
The Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos took to the field at McMahon on Monday afternoon in the Battle of Alberta.
The Eskimos were hoping to take back bragging rights from the Stampeders who won by 31-30 in last year’s classic.
The Stamps are currently in second place in the west behind the Riders with a record of 6-2 and the Eskimos are 1-7.
Calgary won the classic in 2009, 2010 and 2012 and is 6-3 in the last nine games played at home against the Eskimos.
Edmonton owns the all-time series advantage between the two clubs with a record of 123-86-3, taking into consideration only regular-season games dating back to 1949.
The game got underway at 3:00 and Kevin Glenn's 33 yard pass to Maurice Price opened up the scoring at 2:51 to make it 6-0. Rene Paredes' extra point was good making it 7-0.
Paredes nailed a 41 yard field goal at 8:18 to bring the score to 10-0.
A one yard rush late in the quarter by Bo Levi Mitchell scored and the point after was also successful resulting in a 17-0 lead for the Stamps by the end of the quarter.
The Eskimos finally got on the board with about five minutes left in the second quarter with a touchdown from Joseph making it a 17-7 game.
The start of third quarter action netted Paredes another field goal to put the Stamps up 20-7.
Paredes put the boot to the ball again a few minutes later and blasted it through the uprights, 23-7 Stamps.
Maurice Price caught a pass for a 42 yard touchdown in the third with five minutes left to make it 30-7 Stamps.
Price pulled in another pass early in the fourth for a 67 yard touchdown extending the Stamps lead to 37-7.
At that point in the game, Price had caught five passes for a total of 166 yards and three TDs.
Eskimos try to get back in the game in the fourth with a TD from Cary Koch. A two point conversion failed bringing the score to 37-13.
Edmonton kept it interesting in the fourth with a TD from John White, 37-20.
Just before the three minute warning, Edmonton tacked another TD on the board with a big catch from Matt Carter which closed the gap to 10 points, 37-27.
The Eskimos QB took the hit to deliver another TD late in the fourth to Fred Stamps to make it 37-34.
Edmonton had the ball with seconds left in the game and just couldn't pull out the win despite four TDs in the fourth.
Stamps win 37-34 to take the Labour Day Classic for the second year in a row.
The Eskimos will get another crack at the Stamps on home field in Edmonton on Friday night.
