Ticats set table for Lions’ feast
You can’t lose that game.
Not if you’re the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and appear to have overcome the hostile environment of B.C. Place, your fourth starting receiver (Terrence Toliver) lost to injury in five games, and four quarterback sacks to find yourself 33 seconds, then two seconds, from a victory so secure that everyone, including you, just assumes it’s yours.
By the Ticats’ own mantra, in the last third of the season there is no such thing as an encouraging defeat. They will all stink, some just worse than others.
So Saturday night’s 35-32 loss to the B.C. Lions in the second overtime period becomes this and only this: the second weekend in a row in which the Ticats (6-7) did not win while the Ottawa Redblacks (8-5) did. Those two weekends are now the difference between first and second place, and between the Ticats regaining the significant momentum they’d built up since late August and needing — not just wanting — a victory in Saturday’s return match with the Lions at Tim Hortons Field.
The bitter loss reverses the telescope so the Ticats and their fans look through the long end where even the good things they accomplished Saturday are rendered small and distant. It fosters questions about coaching decisions, the kicker and late-game defensive schemes.
Saturday offered spectacular CFL entertainment unless you happen to be with the Ticats, or their widespread Nation which went to bed Saturday night with fingernails clawing at their faces in utter disbelief.
There were three touchdowns after the three-minute whistle, and a long video review of a twopoint convert catch at the end of regulation time by B.C. receiver Bryan Burnham to determine if he’d deftly stayed in bounds to force overtime or had nudged the chalk with his foot, as the officials originally ruled, to send the Ticats back over .500. It correctly went B.C.’s way, by a toenail.
It should never have come to that and it is on the Ticats and their coaching staff that it did.
Hamilton led 20-14 with just over four minutes remaining, then surrendered the lead but only briefly. After Jeremiah Masoli had connected on his second long touchdown pass to Mike Jones and the defence had forced a three-and-out, they led 28-21 with first down at the B.C. 40 and 69 seconds left. Repeat: 69 seconds, with the ball, in the other team’s end.
The offence looked almost nonchalant in managing only two yards on two plays and eating only 10 seconds. In hindsight, had they digested even 12 seconds, they would have won.
Also in hindsight, had they then tried the 45-yard field goal they might have, and probably would have, won. But June Jones decided to punt for the single, which they got, to go up by a touchdown and two-point convert, instead of trying the field goal which, if successful, would have created a two-score lead.
It felt like the wrong decision at the time, and even more wrong with the final outcome. Lirim Hajrullahu had missed from 42 yards earlier, but had also succeeded from 50 and 47. And even a missed field goal might still have gone for a single point.
Jennings, who hadn’t started a game in 12 weeks, covered 75 yards with four completions in five attempts, the critical one a 39-yarder to Shaq Johnson with two seconds left and a 20-yarder to Burman for the TD that preceded the reviewed two-pointer.
The teams matched field goals in the first overtime minimatch, then when Hajrullahu missed from 42 on the opening serve of the second overtime, Ty Long’s 39-yard field goal completed the Lions’ improbable comeback.
The manner by which the loss was yanked from the precipice of victory overshadows just about everything else.
Hajrullahu, for instance, is now a stunning 5-for-5 in field goals over 50 yards but missed twice from 42 yards and shanked an angle punt to provide great field position for a late B.C. drive. That’s become too common and perhaps he shouldn’t be ordered to attempt the angle shots.
Masoli is without so many of
his top receivers but completed 76 per cent of his passes, drove the Ticats far and fast for the go-ahead touchdown and in overtime broke Henry Burris’s franchise record with his 10th 300yard game of the season. But he was sacked four times, and on the final two-and-out of regulation time couldn’t burn the yardage nor, more importantly, the time to salt the game.
And the defence, staunch most of the night and in overtime, gave up two long scoring drives in the final five minutes.
A harsh analysis, maybe, but it’s a harsh time of the year.