[en] Nucleon-induced pre-equilibrium particle emission in the incident-energy range 100 to 200 MeV is of considerable interest. Unambiguous identification of the reaction mechanisms leading to emission of composite ejectiles, such as α-particles, remains a challenge. Recently Bevilacqua found that the TALYS formulation, when compared with proton-induced experimental data, overestimates high-energy emission of a-particles and underestimates it at low outgoing energy. Of course, when the knockout-pickup input in the TALYS code is adjusted for better agreement with the trend towards higher emission energy, the problem is exacerbated at the low energy end. Although suggesting a negligible knockout component at comparatively high emission energies, the results of Bevilacqua are in qualitative agreement with a statistical multistep knockout analysis of Cowley et al. Based on explicit exclusive proton induced knockout studies, the present work suggests that the excitation of low-lying states in the target system, which undergoes a-particle decay, contributes largely to the continuum spectrum at low-energies. This has a profound influence on α-particles with energies down to values comparable to those associated with emission from the compound system. (author)