Mitchell’s Arm, Lawler’s Brilliance Fuel Tiger-Cats Victory Before Bye Week

They saw what was there, and they took it. In all three phases of the game.

And they all talked about how much fun they’re having.

Thus, the Ticats head into their first bye week of the season as a very, very happy bunch, having bested a top-tier CFL defensive front for the second consecutive week, striking early and often, while defeating an injury-depleted B.C. Lions side 41-27 in a Friday Night Lights that was not as close as the final score suggested.

The Ticats are 2-1 and have not lost yet in regulation time, their only setback coming when the overtime home opener wriggled out of their hands. Ancient history, at the moment. Lots of lessons learned and, much more importantly, applied.

While the Lions, who were down four receivers to injury and then had dominant team leader Justin McInnis not finish the game, mounted good drives but finished them with field goals in the first half. By contrast, the Ticats scored touchdowns on four of their first five possessions. And the other drive ended with Marc Liegghio’s first missed field goal of the year.

By the time they scored two third-quarter TDs to extend their 27-9 lead to 34-12, they were on a remarkable roll—dating back to last week’s character victory in Winnipeg—of scoring points on 13 of their previous 17 possessions.

And once again, Bo Levi Mitchell was brilliantly in control. Once again, he did not surpass 300 passing yards, but once again, he was ruthlessly efficient, completing 83 percent (15-for-18) of his passes. Once again, he read the Lions’ rotating zone defence like a multiple-choice exam for which he had already memorized the answer sheet.

He tied a career-high of five touchdown passes, threw deep balls as if they had a GPS laced into the stitches, and was, as his head coach Scott Milanovich said, “red-hot.”

Franchise receiver Kenny Lawler, who was brilliant, one-upped his coach’s description of Mitchell: “That’s piping hot: That’s cast-iron skillet hot. That is smoking!”

Lawler broke loose to catch four passes—one a classic contortionist jump-ball win, another where he saw Mitchell heave the ball long, looked away to dig in behind the defender, then had to relocate the ball in the air for a huge gain—amassing 81 yards and his first touchdown of the season.

It was a definitive statement heading into a bye week, and then things resume with another home date against the Blue Bombers on July 5. For the first time since 2019, the Cats have a winning record after their first three games, and hitting the break with a win at Hamilton Stadium was significant, as the Cats need to re-establish the home-field dominance that has generally been the trademark of most of their biggest years.

“That’s huge,” said Mitchell. “It was really important. We always talk about having a hot start to the year, but we never play at home early in the year. I was disappointed in us not getting the job done in front of our fans in Week 1, but really proud of us coming out and playing that way tonight. It’s how we always need to play for them.”

Mitchell hit surging Kiondré Smith with a 56-yard touchdown bomb on the second play of the game, 59 seconds in. The second drive started with a 56-yard arc to Myron Mitchell, and three plays later, short-yardage quarterback Jake Dolegala crashed in from the 1-yard line. The third covered four plays and 70 yards in 100 seconds, concluding with tight end Max Mang’s seven-yard smash and crash TD reception.

All of this within the first quarter, plus 16 seconds of the second, and a 21-6 lead.

Mitchell had three completions over 30 yards—to Mitchell, Smith and Lawler—and he was not only creative in dissecting the defence, but he was creative in assigning monikers.

Mang, the huge and powerful native of Potsdam, Germany, had a pair of TDs Friday night for three on the season, tripling the number he’d had in a five-year college career at Syracuse University.

Mitchell has nicknamed Mang ‘The Autobahn Assassin,’ and we can’t come up with anything better than that.

“I like that,” said Mang, the Ticats’ second pick in the 2025 Global draft. “He told me that in camp, and I said, ‘We can roll with that one.’

“It’s a fun way to play. Get the ball and fall forward into the end zone. Talking to the coach, I had a chance to compete for a spot in camp, and we use the tight end position well, and let’s do the job week to week and see how it goes.”

It went well, and Mitchell was quick to point out that the Cats ask a lot out of their tight ends. And that has been an intriguing part of Milanovich’s ever-evolving offence; the use of a “true” tight end who blocks defensive tackles but also catches passes, whether it’s been Jevoni Robinson, Mang or the likes of multi-purpose Ante Litre. According to the CFL stats department, the Ticats were the only team in the league last year to list “Tight End” on their depth charts.

The offence has several dimensions and hit the ground running again this year, despite a couple of changes in the offensive line, which didn’t allow a sack Friday and, for the second straight game, nullified a usually-dominant defensive end (Willie Jefferson last week, Mathieu Betts this week).

“I feel like it’s just been continuing since training camp,” Bo Levi Mitchell said. “It was a great training camp. I just feel super comfortable in the system with Scott. There’s a lot of trust between us right now. I’m just trying to do the right thing, and he’s trusting me to take the shots when I see them, so it’s fun, right? I’ve got an amazing receiving crew where every single person can make crazy catches and plays down the field. That makes it tough on DBs, makes it tough to run zone. It just shows that teams know and understand who we are as an offence.

“If you’re going to come down and give us a chance to go over the top, we will. If you back up, we’re going to get the ball to Tree and let him do his thing.”

That would be running back Larry Routree III, who carried the ball 18 times for 62 yards and is starting to keep defences so honest they’re eligible for the Polygraph Hall of Fame.

And both Mitchell and Milanovich praised Lawler’s patience and his ability to attract extra coverage because no head coach or defensive coordinator wants him to be the player who beats you… which he often does anyway.

“Everybody is rolling their coverage to Kenny for the first couple of games,” Mitchell said. “And rightfully so. He was probably the best receiver in the league last year, in my opinion and just a guy that if you’re not double-covering or adding help over the top, it’s going to make it tough for the guy covering him all day.”

“Just go watch that one play. He’s five yards behind the DB, and I’m just trusting him. I throw the ball to a spot where I think he can make a play. He takes his eyes completely off the ball, runs around the DB, re-tracks it, finds it, puts his hands on it. It just shows you who Kenny Lawler really is and the appreciation you should have for some of the great plays he’s made.”

Milanovich said, “I love the way we started the game. Hopefully, we learned a good lesson in that first game, where we just keep our foot on the gas, play for 60 minutes, just do our job, make our plays until the game’s over. That’s what happened tonight.”

“Bo was on fire. You know, we took the ball, and then they gave us the wind, and we ended up in that first quarter having a pretty strong wind behind us, and he hit the first couple, and you’ve just got to kind of feed him when he’s hot like that.”

“It was 21-9 pretty quickly. So we’ve improved a lot, I think, in our (defensive) red zone defence. And, that’s a good thing.”

For the second week in a row, All-CFL safety Stavros Katsantonis made an athletic interception, this one at the three-minute warning of the first half. Mitchell then hit Lawler for a 49-yard touchdown on the very next play, making it 27-9 as the stadium crowd erupted.

That was another punctuation mark, and with the Ticats playing well in the trenches and scoring touchdowns on two of their first three drives in the second half, this one really was no longer in doubt: Mang got his second major, and the fleet Gittens’ excellent pattern went for 23 yards over the middle and a touchdown just into the fourth quarter.

“That kind of put us where we needed to be,” Milanovich said. “A great pattern by Kurleigh. You never feel like the game’s over, but that one made it tough on them.”

The Lions, who are playing outside Vancouver until early August because of soccer’s World Cup, did score two touchdowns in the fourth quarter on passes to fifth-round draft choice Nick Cenacle, one by Nathan Rourke and another by his backup Chase Brice. But way too little, way too late for the injury-riddled squad, because of what the Ticats’ attack had already piled up.

“Welcome to the most fun offence you’re ever going to play in,” Mitchell said.

CATS CLAUSES: Bo Levi Mitchell’s final line: 15-for-18, 285 yards, 5 TDs (matching his career-high), 0 interceptions, 0 sacks … Kenny Lawler caught 4 balls on 5 targets, for 81 yards and a TD … Kurleigh Gittens Jr. caught all 4 balls thrown his way for 43 yards and a TD … Kiondré Smith had two catches for 76 yards, 56 on his early TD and has caught 13 of 14 passes directed his way this season for 239 yards and 3 TDs. That’s a 1434-yard season pace… Max Mang’s two TDs came on 3 catches which totalled 22 bullish yards … field side HB Quavian White, DT Mario Kendricks Jr. and DE Phil Ossai were officially credited with the Ticat sacks … SAM LB Reggie Stubblefield was again fleet and dogged on pursuit, with 7 tackles and a knockdown … DB Robert Panabaker had a thunderous special teams tackle and DB Kaleb Hayes and LB Jordan Crook each had two tackles on special teams … P Mitch McCarthy had a great night, with four punts averaging 52.3 yards overall and fast and steady downfield tackling and the Lions’ loss of returner Seven McGee for the season, combined to give him an excellent 47.5-yard net average … Isaiah Wooden Sr. had a 33-yard kickoff return and had a couple of others blunted by penalties … The Ticats did not have a penalty called on their offence. Two were called on the defence and four on special teams …. Zamari Walton, who got into 2 games last year, came off the practice roster to start at boundary corner and made a nice knockdown: “I hadn’t been out there in a while, and it felt pretty good to showcase what I can do. And we got a good win too. We played a lot of man-to-man. Obviously, we have to get a little bit better at the end, but we stuck together and mission accomplished.” … for the Lions, Nick Cenacle had 9 catches for 120 yards and 2 late touchdowns … QB Nathan Rourke was 24-for-35, 291 yards, no touchdowns and one interception and the Ticat defensive line did a good job of keeping him inside, as he had only 1 official rush and didn’t attempt many run-pass-options … former Ticat James Butler didn’t score a TD for the first time in his 3 games vs the Cats but did rush for 62 yards on 15 carries … BC WR star Justin McInnis had 5 catches for 81 yards … all-time CFL FG percentage leader Sean Whyte remained perfect on the season with a 4-for-4 night … LBs Darnell Sankey and Deontai Williams led the Lions with 7 and 6 defensive tackles, respectively … scores at the end of the quarters: 14-6, 27-9, 34-12, 41-27, all in favour of the Ticats… BC had 29 first downs and Hamilton only 18 because of their quick strikes … ditto, net offence at 444 for BC and Hamilton 347 … ditto, time of possession; BC 35:21, Hamilton 24:39… Windsor native LB Brian Bulcke, who helped the 2013 “Guelph Ticats” into the Grey Cup game, was the Alumnus of Distinction … attendance was 20,402