By Gary Lambrecht
Baltimore Sun , Aug. 3 ,1995

   One-third of the way through their season and halfway through a grueling road trip , the Baltimore Stallions earned a slice of Canadian Football history last night. Behind the league's premier defense and kicker Carlos Huerta, the Stallions became the first American team ever to beat the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium, as Baltimore hung on for a 19-12 victory before 30,698. The Stallions forced three, fourth-quarter turnovers to preserve the victory, and they saved their biggest play for the final minute of the contest. 
   Edmonton, which had cut the lead to 19-12 on a Sean Fleming field goal early in the fourth quarter, put a huge scare into the Stallions. With just over a minute left, backup quarterback Chris Vargas hit wide receiver Jim Sandusky on a square-out pattern. Sandusky, who made his 500th career reception on the play, beat cornerback Courtney Griffin on the play, the turned upfield for what appeared to be the game-tying score. But Baltimore linebacker O.J. Brigance ran him down from behind and stripped him of the ball at the Baltimore 17. Tracey Gravely recovered to preserve a hard-earned victory for the Stallions (5-1), who won their fifth straight and maintained first place in the Southern Division.
   Defense has been the Stallions' strongest suit this season, and Baltimore's defense was chiefly responsible for its 13-5 half-time lead.
   The Stallions' early offense was a study in frustration. A time count violation and a holding penalty foiled two first-quarter drives, while Edmonton's defense did its job for the rest of the quarter. On its opening drive, Baltimore quickly had to punt from deep in its territory. Rookie long snapper Robert Davis sent the ball sailing over punter Josh Miller's head and out of the Stallion's end zone, resulting in a safety touch that put the Eskimos on top, 2-0. 
   Penalties stalled Baltimore on its next two drives. Meanwhile, Edmonton put together a 50-yard drive, behind quarterback Kerwin Bell's five straight completions, to increase its lead to 5-0 on kicker Sean Fleming's 12-yard field goal with 11 minutes left in the half. The Stallions finally got untracked, as quarterback Tracy Ham completed passes to Shannon Culver, Clark, and Armstrong for 17, 15 and 12 yards; and, Ham turned a broken play into a 15-yard scramble. That brought Baltimore to the Edmonton 29, where the Stallions misfired again. 
   First, an illegal procedure penalty against tackle Neal Fort pushed the Stallions back five yards. Then, after Ham threw an incomplete pass, he was sacked for an 11-yard loss by linebacker Errol Martin, taking the Stallions out of field goal range and forcing another Miller punt. Miller deftly handled a high snap by Davis, before hitting a 42-yard punt to pin the Eskimos back on their 4. Edmonton quickly punted, and Baltimore's Chris Wright gave the Stallions excellent field position by dancing through several tacklers during a 20-yard return. 
   Baltimore started on the Edmonton 30, stalled again, but this time, kicker Carlos Huerta came to the rescue. His 37-yard field goal cut the Eskimos' lead to 5-3 with four minutes left in the half. Huerta then gave the Stallions a 6-5 lead with another 37-yard field goal, thanks to a poor punt by Edmonton's Glenn Harper that gave the Stallions possession near mid-field. Ham's 26-yard completion to Reggie Perry put Huerta in range. 
   The defenses pretty much owned the first half, and it was Baltimore's that had the last word before the break. With time running out, Bell threw an ill-advised pass into the left flat, where halfback Charles Anthony stepped in front of Jim Sandusky, picked off the pass and sprinted 52 yards untouched for the score that stunned the home crowd and gave the Stallions a 13-5 lead. 
   Ham initially did not come out for the second half, having injured his foot early in the game. Although Ham did replace backup Shawn Jones after the Stallions' first series, Baltimore didn't need either of them to extend its lead to 16-5. That's because Wright opened the second half with a 62-yard punt return, giving the Stallions possession at the Eskimos 38. Jones threw two incompletions, but Huerta kicked a 46-yard field goal. Huerta's fourth field goal, from 22 yards, put Baltimore up 19-9.

STALLIONS' 19-12 VICTORY IS COSTLY
Ham and Smith injured in toughie at Edmonton

By Gary Lambrecht
Evening Sun, Aug. 3, 1995

   Baltimore brought the Canadian Football League's top defense into Commonwealth Stadium last night, and the Stallions produced yet another stellar effort. 
   On a night when Baltimore's offense was grounded by the Edmonton Eskimos, the Stallions defense was dominant throughout and nearly miraculous down the stretch of a 19-12 victory before 30,698. The victory, the fifth straight for Baltimore (5-1), kept the Stallions atop the CFL's Southern Division. It also marked the first time that Edmonton (4-2) had ever lost at home to a U.S. team. 
   Baltimore reached the one-third mark of its regular season, and won its second game of a grueling road trip at a high cost. Free safety Lester Smith suffered a broken left ankle and is lost indefinitely. Quarterback Tracy Ham, who sprained his left foot, was limping noticeably after the game and is questionable for Sunday's game against undefeated Calgary. Cornerback Corris Ervin pulled a hamstring, marking the third injury to a Baltimore cornerback in the past two weeks. He most likely will miss Sunday's game. Cornerback Irv Smith also aggravated his sore lower back. 
   Yet, none of those injuries kept Baltimore's defense from stuffing the Eskimos. Baltimore's only touchdown was by halfback Charles Anthony, who intercepted a pass by Edmonton quarterback Kerwin Bell and sprinted 52 yards for the score that gave the Stallions a 13-5 half-time lead. But Anthony's play was merely a prelude to the fourth quarter in which the Stallions protected a 19-12 lead against backup Edmonton quarterback Chris Vargas by forcing three turnovers. Linebacker O.J. Brigance was the most heroic. Barely a minute after intercepting Vargas to seemingly seal the victory, Brigance clinched it for Baltimore with the play of the game. 
   On a first-down play from the Baltimore 47, Vargas hit wide receiver Jim Sandusky on a square-out pattern, and Sandusky eluded a Baltimore defender and began sprinting down the right sideline, seemingly en-route to a game-tying score. But Brigance never gave up on the play. He closed on Sandusky inside the 20, then stripped him of the ball. Tracey Gravely, who had been moved from linebacker to free safety to fill in for Lester Smith, recovered the ball at the Baltimore 17. The Stallions ran out the clock to seal a sweet victory. 
   "I didn't even know where the end zone was," said Brigance, who initially didn't realize he had forced a fumble. "I just said to myself, 'O.J., run as fast as you can and just try to get him.' I hit him, and everything else happened." 
   "After you've played football for a long time, sometimes you just know the offense isn't going to make it happen, and the defense has to make it happen," said rookie defensive end Grant Carter, who knocked down a pass and also intercepted a fourth-quarter pass from Vargas, after it was deflected by tackle Robert Presbury. "As the game wore on, it became evident that the defense had to win the game," Carter added. "And O.J. Brigance showed that he is one of the best players in this league."
   Baltimore's defense is definitely the best in the CFL at this point. Last night, battling with an Edmonton defense that sacked Ham six times - he completed just nine of 22 passes for 169 yards and was intercepted twice - and limited the Stallions to 12 first downs and a season-low 195 yards of total offense, the Stallions found other ways to win. 
   Kicker Carlos Huerta again played a huge role, making four straight field goals to bail out the offense. But the night belonged to the Stallions' banged-up defensive unit, which offset another penalty-filled night. Baltimore was flagged 18 times for 150 yards. It didn't matter. 
   The Stallions, who came into the game as the league's top rushing defense, held the Eskimos to 43 yards rushing. Stallions defenders allowed Bell and Vargas to combine for 300 yards passing, but they produced four turnovers, three sacks and stopped Edmonton drives with three interceptions. 
   "To get two points [in the standings] from the Eskimos at home is very, very difficult, especially on four days' rest. What these players did tonight should be complimented," Baltimore coach Don Matthews said. "I know that defense wins football games. And when the defense is playing as good as we are right now, we always have a chance to win the game." 
   The Stallions wind up their three-game, nine-day road trip on Sunday against the league's hottest home team and hottest offense. Calgary, led by quarterback Doug Flutie, who watched last night's game, has won 26 straight home games and is average 41 points a game. The Stallions will drag their weary bodies into McMahon and try to do the unlikely again.
   The way their defense is playing - allowing only 31 points in the last 14 quarters - they feel anything is possible. "It's going to be a tough one, with Flutie at the helm," Brigance said. "Right now, I feel great. Tomorrow, I'll probably feel drained. We're going to find out even more about our team's character on Sunday." 
NOTES: Ham, who was limping badly after the game with a sprained foot, is expected to play on Sunday....Anthony's interception return for a touchdown was the first in Baltimore's history.