Steve Milton: Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
On the night their organization honoured the last Tiger-Cat quarterback to win a Grey Cup and the only Ticats team to win a Grey Cup game in Hamilton, the current players commemorated the occasion by keeping their Cup hopes alive.
The Ticats won the game they had to win to avoid certain elimination, with Friday's 18-14 victory over the absolutely reeling Saskatchewan Roughriders, wrenching back control of their own destiny from the Riders, who still lead them by two points in the crossover" race for third place in the CFL East.
But Hamilton has a game in hand on the Riders (6-10), who are on a bye week before playing CFL-leading Winnipeg in a rivalry home-and-home series to the end the season. But even if Saskatchewan sweeps the Bombers - and remember the Roughriders have now lost five in a row and nine of the last 11 - Hamilton (5-10) would still finish third, and make the playoffs, by winning their three remaining games: Friday night in Calgary, followed by a home-and-home series with Ottawa.
The basic arithmetic is that the Ticats have to win one more game than the Roughriders do. And, you could add, one more game than the Edmonton Eskimos and Ottawa Redblacks both of whom stayed mathematically alive with the Riders' loss.
However, also keep in mind that the Ticats have not had even a two-game winning streak this year, and have looked like they've turned the corner before, and have followed up by throwing it in reverse back around the same corner they just turned.
There were some agonizing signs that this could descend into another narrow Hamilton loss instead of a rare narrow win, but at this point of the season, style points don't matter: only standings points do. And there is a beauty in an ugly win when the game is a must-have. The Ticats, yet again, did not score a touchdown in the second half, allowed a blocked punt which led immediately to a Riders' touchdown and Dane Evans completed only 11 passes and threw two interceptions, but the defence sacked Cody Fajardo seven times (the Riders sacked them eight times in June's season-opener) through a porous Riders offensive line that had abandoned all pretense of a running game and, while bending a bit, did not break.
I'd say that describes it perfectly," said Ticat defensive lineman Malik Carney who was outstanding, recording three sacks for the first time in his football career, at any level, including high school and college. We just had to win. And now we can take that momentum into Calgary next week."
Although place-kicker Seth Small missed a convert on Evans' early short-yardage touchdown, he was four-for-four in field goals and is steadily becoming one of the good-news stories of the generally-frustrating Ticats season.
And then there was big running back Wes Hills who put the offence on his back, followed some aggressive blocking by a finally-confident offensive line, churned up 132 punishing rushing yards and caught a pass for another 26 yards. He was particularly effective on two third-quarter drives which unfortunately - because they were with the wind - resulted in only field goals, and in a fourth-quarter game-preserving drive which featured his runs and some solid Evans passes that ate up almost half of the fourth quarter when the Ticats were playing into the cold headwind. Head coach Orlondo Steinauer had decided to trust his defence, and Hills, in the fourth quarter by electing to take the ball, and the wind, in the third quarter. Seemed questionable at the time, but in a results-based industry .... you'd have to say it was the right decision.
I can't talk about my game without talking about the whole offence," said Hills, who has been a dominant force since taking over the starter's role three games ago. It was cold weather and nobody wants to hit in cold weather, so we had a plan to run the ball and that's exactly what we did. The line did a great job up front, where it all starts. Everybody did their jobs.
If you have a big-bodied back you want to run the ball and impose your will, open up the pass defence. You saw that in the win against Winnipeg."
Evans, who threw five of his 11 completions in that turf-and-clock-eating fourth quarter drive said, On a night like tonight when Wes and the O line are just eating, you just get out of the way. I don't have the vocabulary to say how great they were."
The question now is one of sustainability. Can the Ticats keep their balloon afloat after spending so much of this season sticking little pins in it? Steinauer says the defence had been waiting a while for the kind of big-play-at-the-right-time cadence they delivered Friday and said he felt all three phases of the game played solid roles. It was the first time all season that the Ticats did not allow a point in the second half.
We knew the situation," he said referring to the must-win status of the game. We had to find a way to win. Everything didn't go according to plan, but the most important thing is we found a way. We've been in that situation before and found a way to squander them, more often than not."
Because of that wastefulness, the Ticats are still faced with having to win at least two, maybe even three, of their remaining three games. But at least that's now in their own hands, not anybody else's.
NOTES: Danny McManus, the newest member of the Wall of Honour, was celebrated at halftime with a video highlight, his own speech, and a trip around the field in a truck ... McManus's favourite target Darren Flutie was back in Hamilton for the first time in two decades ... Chuck Ealy and other members of the 1972 Ticats team, which beat Saskatchewan at Ivor Wynne Stadium to win the Grey Cup were also on hand ... attendance was 21,456 ... with 132 rushing yards, Wes Hills was the first Ticat to surpass 100 yards since Don Jackson, Oct. 29 of last year against Edmonton ... Cody Fajardo was 24-for-31 for 259 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions (Richard Leonard, Ciante Evans). Kian Schaffer-Baker caught six Rider passes for 93 yards and a touchdown ... Anthony Johnson had three catches for 91 yards for the Ticats ... Tim White had 63 yards but only three catches on 10 targets ... other Ticat sacks went to Micah Johnson, Vosean Joseph, Mo Diallo and Julian Howsare.
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com