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HAMILTON — The big boys up front on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats defensive line put on their hard hats and brought their lunch buckets Sunday.
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With six sacks, three fumble recoveries, plenty of pressures and an interception, the defence created all kinds of havoc for Montreal Alouettes quarterback Trevor Harris and his team’s offence. With a 23-12 win Sunday in the CFL East Division semi-final, with snow fluttering to the ground all game, the Ticats will face the Toronto Argonauts next Sunday at BMO Field – with the winner playing in the Grey Cup.
There were plenty of heroes for the Ticats – on this day, most of them were on the defensive side of the ball. Dylan Wynn had two sacks, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.
“This is still a steel mill town, it’s a hard-working town,” said Ticats defensive end Ja’Gared Davis, who had two quarterback sacks, a forced fumble and a huge second-down stop of Montreal running back William Stanback, who was limited to 29 yards on 12 carries. “We are the spitting image of this town. They’re hard working, we want to be hard working. They bust their asses, we bust our asses. The defence is where we set the tone.”
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While the Alouettes moved the ball up and down the field much of the game – they had a Time of Possession edge of 11:34 to 3:26 in the first quarter – the mistakes killed them. Harris completed 28 of 44 passes for 364 yards. Hamilton QB Jeremiah Masoli completed 18 of 24 for 184 yards.
“Turnovers are always the No. 1 predictor in who wins football games,” said Harris. “We had quite a lot today and they didn’t. It sucks. I really feel like this football team had something special. No excuses. They beat us in 60 minutes. If we play again, do I think it’d be the same outcome? I don’t, but any competitor would say that. It hurts, especially you know, the older you get – 35 years old.”
Asked about his own performance, Harris said: “We didn’t win so it’s not good enough. It’s frustrating. You always reflect back not on the good things you did, but always the negatives and things that you can do better. We’re trained that way. When we’re kids, you get the test back, you get a 95% and you look at what you got wrong. Same thing in football.”
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“We were able to do a great job in two of the three phases (defence and special teams),” said Ticats coach Orlondo Steinauer. “Sometimes it’s offence and special teams, sometimes it’s offence and defence. In this league, you’re going to have to have points more often than not, but they can come a lot of different ways. We had a timely touchdown that swung the momentum, the defence had some stops when it counted, the big turnover before the half – those are all momentum swings. When you have field position and momentum, that often turns into points. In elimination football, you’d like to say you’re clicking on all three phases, but that’s just simply not the case. You just need one more point than the other team.”
Attendance for the game was 21,892. And it was noisy.
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On Montreal’s opening offensive drive, Harris marched his team 95 yards — aided by a couple of roughing-the-passer calls, getting a 17-yard field goal by David Cote with 5:18 left in the first quarter to take a 3-0 lead.
After Hamilton was penalized for roughing the kicker, Harris connected with Kaoin Julien-Grant, who made a nice 28-yard grab. But two plays later, Ticats defensive end Julian Howsare pounced on a Harris fumble (forced by Ted Laurent) and rumbled 45 yards — to the Montreal 22. Masoli found Brandon Banks open in the end zone for a 24-yard touchdown pass with 6:36 left in the first half. A Michael Domagala convert made it 7-3.
A 27-yard pass to Banks pushed the Ticats into Montreal territory. A roughing-the-passer penalty to Michael Wakefield gave Hamilton new life on the Als’ six-yard line. On the next play, Don Jackson took a handoff and found space up the middle as he scored a touchdown. The convert made it 14-3 with 2:16 left in the first half.
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Another Harris fumble, forced by Davis and recovered by Wynn, gave the Ticats the ball at the Montreal 50 with 1:28 left in the first half. A 38-yard field goal by Domagala made it 17-3. A long Harris pass was intercepted by Stavros Katsantonis with 29 seconds left. On the final play of the half, Domagala booted a 37-yard field goal.
After converting on a third-and-three gamble from the Hamilton 40, Harris threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Eugene Lewis. The convert made it 20-10 with a bit less than eight minutes left in the third quarter.
The Ticats fumbled a punt with 5:30 left in the game. But the CFL Command Centre ruled there was a no-yards penalty on Montreal. Domagala booted a 17-yard field goal to make it 23-10 with 3:06 left. Hamilton conceded a safety with 56 seconds left and it was 23-12. Wynn forced a Harris fumble, which was recovered by Laurent.
In the days leading up to the game, Alouettes linebacker Patrick Levels had made a guarantee his team would win. Asked about it Sunday, he said: “You play the game to win, it’s that simple. It’s the biggest game of the year for us, I’m going to guarantee a win every time. You make turnovers. You give up points. You lose.”
HITTING THEM HARD: Big defensive plays lead Ticats to East semi-final win over Als - Ottawa Sun
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