Perched on his teammates’ shoulders like a pharaoh and slamming his fist into the air in happy relief, Marc Liegghio couldn’t see what was going on behind him: The devastation his right instep had wrought upon the Argos, whom his 47-yard field goal into an increasingly stiff wind had just beaten with no seconds left on the clock. Several double-blues sprawled on the damp field in disbelief, a couple of them tossing their helmets in shock.
This was a game they had won…and then didn’t.
Liegghio, who missed two field goals last week, kicked his sixth field goal in six attempts to give the Ticats the improbable 33-31 comeback win over the Argos, who are suddenly now only four points up on Hamilton in the race for the third and final playoff berth in the CFL East. Four games remain, including another couple of biggies next weekend: the Ticats in Vancouver to face the BC Lions on Friday night, the Argos at home to first-place Montreal on Saturday.
The Argos (7-7) are still in the driver’s seat, but all of a sudden there’s a very loud backseat driver. The Ticats (5-9) have won three in a row for the first time this season and are threatening to become just the fifth team in CFL history to make the playoffs after an 0-5 start. That’s still a long way off and requires a lot of Hamilton victories, but the Ticats can feel something happening, their fans can feel it, most of the league can feel it and the Argos can definitely feel it. Still, the Ticat mantra, even amidst the raucous joy of their locker room, remains the same. One game at a time.
While it was Liegghio who was hoisted and paraded off the field, the linchpin of this victory was Bo Levi Mitchell, who has made the most of his opportunity to return under centre since Taylor Powell –who’d just replaced him—was hurt late last month. While he threw just one touchdown pass (and had another nullified by a penalty), he completed nearly 80 percent of his 40 passes for 362 yards, didn’t throw an interception, rushed three times, twice for critical first downs, and absolutely owned second downs. The Ticats converted 16 of the 25 times they faced second-down, including twice in the game’s final drive which also had a daring third-down throw to running back James Butler, playing his first game in 41 days.
After the Ticat defence held the Argos to a field goal which put the home side up 31-30, Mitchell got the ball at his own 35 with just 48 seconds left on the clock and drove 35 yards in seven plays to the Toronto 40. Liegghio and the field goal unit took it from there, and the Ticat self-belief ratcheted up another couple of notches. They stormed off the bench like they were fleeing a swarm of bees.
The winning field goal was far from automatic, as BMO field’s grass surface was still chewed up from a soccer game—several Ticats slipped on it during the game—making it hard to get a good grip with the plant leg and the wind off Lake Ontario was much stronger than it had been earlier in the game. But Liegghio came through, right down the middle, for the satisfying victory.
“Especially after last week, right?” Mitchell said. “I thought we could kick on third down, I trust him, I trust his leg, but Scott (Milanovich) trusted us to go for it on third down and get a little closer for field position. Legs was being who he is. He got run out of a place (Winnipeg) early in his career, and to be here and be confident, we all believe in that guy and we love him. And we’ll put the game in his hands at any point.”
Before the game was in Liegghio’s hands, though, it was in Mitchell’s. And he knew exactly what to do with it.
After the Argos had taken a 31-30 lead on a Lirim Hajrullahu field goal –it could have been a touchdown but the Ticats appealed a pass interference call in the end zone and won, and Chad Kelly couldn’t complete on the next play—Mitchell got the ball at his own 35 and hit Kiondré Smith, Steven Dunbar Jr., Shemar Bridges, had an incompletion, then on 3rd and 3 got it outside to James Butler who took the pass for eight yards. Then he put the Ticats closer with another completion to Bridges for six yards. It was masterful, as was most of his game.
His head coach thought it was Mitchell’s best performance of the year, and there’s no argument here.
“He was patient, when there were shots to be had he took them,” Scott Milanovich said. “When there weren’t, he checked down and trusted the offence and trusted that we’d get it on the next play. Proud of him, proud of everybody. This is a resilient group and they found a way to get it done in the fourth.”
Mitchell, who picked up a couple of first downs with unscripted runs wasn’t afraid to carry the ball either.
”I’m afraid when I’m doing it,” he quipped. “Especially when they’ve got 48 (premier linebacker Wynton McManis) over there.”
The Ticats were a phenomenal 9-for-12 on second-down conversions in the opening 30 minutes although they trailed 18-14 at intermission.
“It’s something we hadn’t been super strong on all year,” he said. “We’ve been great at red zone, we’ve run the ball well at times but there’ve been some games where second downs were kind of brutal. I think that shows what we’re doing on first down: easier when you make yards on first.”
The Ticats, despite scoring 33 points, settled for Liegghio treys when they could have had touchdowns three times: there was a catchable pass which was missed (James Tuck), a penalty (Brendan Bordner) to nullify a touchdown and a tremendous goal-line stand from the ‘Argos who had to stop the Ticats five times (an Argo penalty gave them three bonus downs) from their own two-yard line. Scott Milanovich said he’d only had that happen to him once before in his career and the staunch Argo defence ignited an audience of 18,210, or at least about 70 percent of them. The other 30 percent seemed to be Ticat supporters.
Fittingly, in a game with lots of offence but 10 field goal attempts—Lirim Hajrullahu was 3-for-4 but the miss was costly as it struck the upright and didn’t even score a single point—it came down to Liegghio’s field goal with Gordon Whyte snapping and punter Nik Constantinou holding.
“I saw us driving the field right at the end and I knew I was going to have a crack at it but just didn’t know how far it was going to be,” said Liegghio quietly as his teammates celebrated loudly in the locker room only a few metres away.
“I think the biggest thing for us is we stuck together all season. I know some of the games haven’t gone our way but there’s always work to be done and that’s what we’re doing every day. Just coming in, practicing and bringing it into game day. And I think it’s showing and hopefully we can keep the streak going for the team then into the playoffs.”
Mitchell had spoken earlier in the week about both he and James Butler getting a chance after they had, at least temporarily lost their jobs: Butler to Greg Bell, Mitchell to Taylor Powell. The Ticats didn’t use Butler much early as Milanovich decided to pass a lot to start the game to soften up the Argo defence, the kind of wrinkle you have to insert into planning when you play a team for the second time in less than three weeks. But Butler had a very strong second half and ended with 58 yards rushing and another 44 yards on six short passes, including the critical one on third down with only 18 seconds to play.
In wins over Ottawa and Toronto, twice, Mitchell has completed a total of 71 passes for 1008 yards, five touchdowns and just one interception.
This game could have gone either way, at any time, but it went the Ticats’ way because the defence bent but did not fatally break (with Stavros Katsantonis making the game’s only turnover, an interception that set up a touchdown pass to Robinson), Liegghio converted all his opportunities, the offensive line blocked well and the receivers caught almost everything thrown their way.
As Mitchell said, there were a lot of things that occurred in this game that contained the kind of elements that cost them games in the season’s first half. For the third straight game –and nearly a fourth, considering that heartbreaking loss in Winnipeg—those things are now happening for the Ticats rather than against them.
“I think they’re feeling good about themselves,” Milanovich said. “They’re happy with the improvements we’ve made, they believe in each other. That’s the thing that’s changed the most. I think all three phases believe the other side is going to do their job. That’s a powerful force.
“I told them momentum is a powerful force and right now we’ve got it.”
They’ll carry that tailwind into Vancouver on Friday against the B.C. Lions. Just another big, big game, and in the past month the Ticats have put themselves back into a position where the games are still big.
CATS CLAUSES: With six catches, Shemar Bridges has shattered the Ticats’ record for a first-year CFLer, with 79, surpassing the 76 Jalen Saunders had in 2017. He’s now only 10 short of the league record … Kiondré Smith had five catches for 79 yards and fellow Canadian Brendan O’Leary-Orange had three catches, all on second down … Ante Litre had a short-yardage touchdown … newcomer Mario Kendricks was credited with the Ticats’ only sack … Carthell Flowers-Lloyd had two special teams tackles and made one on defence at SAM linebacker … the Ticats had 30 first downs, the Argos 23 … Argos QB Chad Kelly was 17 for 26 for 255 yards, a TD and an interception … DaVaris Daniels led the Argos with 118 yards receiving … Makai Polk caught a pass for a touchdown Kelly ran for two … Ralph Holley and former Ticat Fraser Sopik had sacks for the Argos … the Argos got 120 combined yards from backs Ka’Deem Carey (65), Daniel Adeboboye (26) and Deonta McMahon (29).
