Ticats get revenge on Lions with 30-point trouncing in Tigertown.
They likely didn’t need it, but the Hamilton Tiger-Cats will take the extra incentive any day, thank you very much. Especially if it happens to be Game Day.
Long before the electronic media made a mountain of the small hill that was the B.C. Lions dancing and prancing atop the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ logo after their Friday workout at Tim Hortons Field, the Ticats had vowed to come out angry and belligerent on Saturday.
But a little fuel thrown onto the flames of already-seething resolve certainly didn’t hurt the Ticats in their 40-10 demolition of the visiting Lions late Saturday afternoon.
“We were fired up,” said tackle Ted Laurent, the most fired-up among a sea of incendiary defensive players. “It felt like last week we let them off the hook. We had to bounce back AND on top of that we felt disrespected: them stamping and dancing on our logo. It was not necessarily motivation … but we gave them what they deserve.”
Laurent, who took two penalties stemming from over-aggression in the first half and later apologized to his teammates for the temporary lack of discipline, had two of the Ticats’ season-high six sacks, both of them engineered on sheer muscular determination.
The defence, with pick-six interceptions from linebacker Don Unamba and safety Mike Daly, actually outscored the B.C. offence and drove starting quarterback Johnathon Jennings from the game late in the third quarter.
“I think we felt like we let them off the hook last game,” said Daly, who scored his first CFL touchdown and immediately regretted launching the ball into the stands. After the game, he launched a social-media appeal to track down the fan who caught it, and it looks like Daly will get the ball back.
“It got us focused all week. (The dancing) fired up some people on the team, and once we saw that that was kind of the subject of the whole day today and yesterday ...”
They rode it. Hard and fast. It was a highly-charged game, which apparently didn’t end at the final whistle. Some kind of skirmish occurred as the Lions boarded their bus for the airport, although it’s not clear who was involved.
The injury-reduced defensive line did a superb job not only of containing the mobile Jennings but of pressuring him to distraction.
The offensive line was stout in protecting Jeremiah Masoli and carving space for running back John White, who dashed for 108 yards on 15 carries.
After playing his first game in nearly two months last week, White looked more confident with the playbook and his own breakaway speed and was the pilot light of the game-opening touchdown drive, rushing four times for 51 yards, spliced into three Masoli completions.
“It just boosts our confidence, especially for the O-line,” Masoli said of White’s polished work. “It kind of throws off their D-line. They try so hard to stop the run we can drop back and pass a little easier.”
The Ticats were so dominant in all phases of the game that they didn’t even require Masoli’s near-habitual 300 yards of completions, partly because he threw for 175 yards in the first half.
He surgically directed touchdown drives on the Ticats’ first two possessions, knitting White runs and his own passes into rhythmic marches and clearly enjoyed the return of Brandon Banks to the receiving corps after two games off with a groin injury.
Banks had nine catches for 79 yards and two touchdown passes. Masoli praised Banks’ playmaking ability and the confidence his presence brings to the huddle. Overall, Masoli was 18 for 26 for 189 yards, with no interceptions, and threw for three majors.
Luke Tasker inhaled his sixth TD reception of the year to cap the opening drive. And on the next play from scrimmage, the B.C. offence’s first of the game, Unamba picked off Jennings and tore 30 yards for another Hamilton major.
Lirim Hajrullahu, who missed his first convert attempt, was good on his final four and kicked a pair of field goals, including a 51-yarder to make him 6-for-6 over 50 this season.
After two straight losses, the victory gives the Ticats some air under their wings, freeing them to look forward to the Toronto-Ottawa-Ottawa-Montreal quartet of remaining games rather than worrying whether they’d gone cold at exactly the wrong time.
Now they head into the bye week thinking happy thoughts.
“Basically I told them to get their bodies right,” said June Jones.
“I said that the season begins now. Up here, you learn real fast
these last four or five games are what the season’s about. Hopefully we’re hitting a high note now,” he added.
NOTES: June Jones said receiver Terrence Toliver might have suffered a concussion during the game. He had spent much of last week in concussion protocol . ... The Ticats have had three different players compile 100-yard rushing games this year . ... Dane
Evans played the final two series and completed a 17-yard rope to Rashad Lawrence.