“I’m On Cloud Nine” Father-to-Be Litre Ices Ticats Fourth Straight Victory

Another victory for the Ticats on the final play of the game — that’s two in a row now, both on the road — and, along with his wife Katarina, the man who scored the winning touchdown had more than a huge win to celebrate.

All-purpose running back Ante Litre, taking advantage of a pass interference call to the BC Lions, skirted around the left side for a one-yard touchdown in overtime to give the searingly-hot Ticats their fourth straight win 32-29 over the B.C. Lions Friday night in Vancouver.

“I’m on top of the world, mostly because my wife announced her pregnancy today,” said Litre, who cradled the football like a baby after his walk-off score. “That touchdown is for my unborn child. I couldn’t be happier. I’m on cloud nine. You can’t even describe how good it feels.”

His teammates acted out how good it feels. They sprinted about 40 yards to mob Litre in the end zone as the Lions stood by in dumbfounded disbelief.

The Lions had scored on their first two possessions, led 16-0 at the half and 23-8 heading into the final quarter, didn’t allow the Ticats a first down until the 20th minute of the game, got over 100 yards rushing from rejuvenated running back William Stanback, saw the Ticats’, shutdown boundary corner, star running back Greg Bell and top possession receiver Shemar Bridges helped off the field injured, marched downfield in less than a minute to force overtime with a field goal right after the Ticats had taken their only lead of the game, took a 29-26 lead in overtime … and still lost.

This came just seven days after Marc Liegghio’s clutch 48-yard field goal into the wind had beaten the Argos and has created the sense that something special might be going on here.

“I think it is special,” Litre said. “But I think it’s also expected. We know exactly where we are, where we need to be and who we are.

“The story is being written right now. And we’re optimistic but we still have a lot of work to do. We’re not planning on slowing down.”

If they were going to slow down, it could have been in this one as the Ticats allowed a good Williams kickoff return to open the game, permitted the Lions to score on their first two possessions, had only 36 yards passing  — with an interception—and went 1-for-9 on second down conversions.

And it was hauntingly reminiscent of the early July game between these same two teams when the Lions dropped the Ticats to 0-5 by mounting a huge early lead and the Ticats could not catch up. This time, the Cats not only caught up but went past the Lions. Twice: once with less than a minute to go, and again after the Lions had been held to a field goal in overtime’s opening volley.

“Ir didn’t look winnable at all but we knew,” said Ticat receiver Kiondré Smith, who was ruggedly sensational with eight catches, the majority of them hard-earned, and a touchdown. 

“We came out in the second half and scored on our first drive. A one-score game, and it’s anyone’s game. Down the stretch, we’re one of those teams that gets better as it gets going.

“My teammates and I aren’t worried about what it says to anyone else. But what I will say is that you’ve never seen a team that started 0-4 and 0-5 have this much fun down the stretch. We’ve turned it around.”

Head coach Scott Milanovich said it was impossible to pick out the highlight plays from the second-half comeback — “There were so many of them, right? And we needed every one of them to win the game” but the second-half work of Bo Levi Mitchell certainly had to be one of them.

As he did last time against the Lions, Mitchell got off to a soft start, with a couple of overthrows but then caught fire. He completed 29 of his final 30 passes and amassed 279 passing yards in the second half and overtime. It was a gripping, graphic turnaround which began with a touchdown drive on the first possession of the second half.

The Ticats knew they were in business then and demonstrated that with an audacious play for the two-point conversion on that touchdown, scored by Bell. Mitchell took the snap, flipped the ball to Shemar Bridges who swung left and gave it to Tim White who then threw it to Mitchell at the goal line for the two points. The call, and its execution, had a how-do-you-like-us-now brazenness to it. Other than a couple of throws that were deflected by opposing rushers back into his hands, it was the first time Mitchell had caught a pass since he was in college.

Mitchell was one of 11 Ticats who caught passes in this game. Included in that was Brendan O’Leary-Orange who’d dropped a ball early in the game and didn’t see another pass until the fourth quarter when he made a diving catch for a first down then a jumping catch for a touchdown. He was one of four Canadian receivers the Ticats used in the final quarter and overtime — joining Litre, Smith and Hamilton native Tyler Ternowski (who caught two hugely important passes on a touchdown march) — as Mitchell was judicious in his distribution.

“He’s starting to play really well now that he’s healthier,” Milanovich said of O’Leary-Orange. “Big body, you can throw it up to him and he makes the play. That first one that he didn’t catch, he’s making all those catches in practice.  You see it every day. We had no qualms about going back to him, for sure.”

Mitchell, who has worn overalls —now nicknamed Boveralls — to arrive at each of the last four games, all wins, called Friday night “The Tale of Two Halves”  and there was a different feel to his game when he came out for the second half. 

“We had some shots (in the first half), we had some check-downs tagged to it,” Mitchell said. “Early on I was going after some of the big ones. They were there, I just didn’t make the throw. I got greedy on a press-man to Tim White.

“Scott kind of gave it to me and said, ‘Hey lock in and go after your reads.’  I appreciate him sticking with me, I don’t know if he was thinking about doing anything.  I told him early in the season that no matter what kind of funk I’m in, I’ll get myself out of it.

“The O-line gave me time. Greg and Ante ran the hell out of the ball, and the receivers made some amazing catches in the second half.”

By “doing anything” Mitchell was likely referring to the possibility of either Taylor Powell or Taulia Tagovailoa going under centre for a spell. But Milanovich didn’t give a hint of that. This is Mitchell’s team right now, and deservedly so.

He and Milanovich both praised Smith and Ternowski for clutch catches in traffic, with Mitchell pointing out that working with Ternowski in the past two off-seasons, he’s probably thrown the Hamilton native “5 to 10 thousand passes.”

This game had more twists and turns than an Olympic slalom course. Among them:

* For the third straight home game the Lions’ own punter Stefan Flintoft kicked a ball into the massive low-hanging scoreboard, something most Lions observers hadn’t seen even once in years. This time the ball stuck there and didn’t drop. 

*Starting 7-for-7 Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke cooled off considerably, completely less than 50 per cent of his passes thereafter.

* It seemed like the Ticats might have scored too early as Rourke drove the Lions in the final minute deep into Hamilton’s end, but a second-down catch by Keon Hatcher came up short of the first down marker and the Lions had to kick a short field goal to force overtime.

*In that overtime the Lions, scrimmaging first, looked good but then there were two Rourke overthrows which forced them to settle for a field goal.

*Then it appeared that the Ticats would also have to settle for a field goal and go into a second overtime when Mitchell’s pass to O’Leary-Orange in the end zone went incomplete. But Milanovich threw the challenge flag, and the command centre determined that  Lions defensive back Ronald Kent Jr was guilty of pass interference. One play later, the bench emptied to mob Litre for his short but very determined one-yard touchdown run.

“We have confidence in who we are,” Lite said. “We don’t doubt. There’s no fluttering, there’s no veering off on our objective. We know who we are, and we’re going to go out and prove it every single week.

The Ticats still have a hill to climb and need to keep winning and might still require a little help from other teams. But they’re taking care of what they can take care of and are overtly confident coming off two road wins won on the final play.

“Some kind of win,” Milanovich said. “Some kind of win.” 

CATS CLAUSES …  Bo Levi Mitchell was 34-for-40 for 315 yards, two TDs and one interception … after converting only one of their first 9 second downs, Hamilton made good on 8 of their last 11 … with four catches before he injured his quadriceps Shemar Bridges is just six short of the league record for first-year CFL players …  Casey Sayles, DeWayne Hendrix, and David Ménard had sacks for the Cats … Ticat CB Jamal Peters was hurt early but returned to play the second half … DB Destin Talbert had another strong game, as did safety Stavros Katsantonis … former Ticats head coach June Jones, who coached Mitchell at SMU, was at the game and watched from the spotter’s booth. He’s an offensive adviser at a Hawaii high school this season … Lions’ QB Nathan Rourke was 22-for-36 for 264 yards, with no TDs or interceptions … William Stanback ran for 103 yards on 15 carries … Jevon Cottoy caught 5 passes for 81 yards  … Christian Covington, Manny Rugamba and Garry Peters recorded the Lions’ sacks and LB Ryder Varga led all tacklers with 13.