{"id":44461,"date":"2025-08-04T11:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T11:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/44461\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T11:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T11:36:10","slug":"edmonton-elks-keep-skidding-falling-28-24-to-hamilton-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/44461\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Elks keep skidding, falling 28-24 to Hamilton Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not even the threat of lightning could knock the Hamilton Tiger-Cats out of their zone.<\/p>\n<p>Tim White reeled in a pair of touchdown passes as the Tiger-Cats continued their red-hot play, defeating the Edmonton Elks 28-24 on Saturday in a game that was delayed more than an hour due to lightning strikes around the Alberta capital.<\/p>\n<p>The Ticats (6-2) have now won six games in a row.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was resiliency and continuing to build the belief in the locker room, no matter what happens, where we are in games, up or down, a lightning delay trying to take away the momentum, we will find a way to win,&#8221; said Hamilton quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, who was 30 for 42 for 350 yards passing and three TDs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s different people, it&#8217;s different groups every time. When it matters, we are playing the complimentary football we need to play.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A white football player in a green-and-yellow uniform is falling toward the ground, while trying to wrap his arms around his opponent, wearing a white-and-black uniform. The opposing player has the football cocked in their throwing hand, looking downfield.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/fbo-cfl-tiger-cats-elks-20250802.JPG\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.2854030501089324\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Tiger-Cats quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, centre, surpassed Doug Flutie in career passing yards during Saturday&#8217;s game against Edmonton. (Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell eclipsed Doug Flutie (41,355) in career CFL passing yards on Saturday, moving into ninth all-time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s doing a great job of moving in the pocket and not taking sacks and making great decisions with the football and making the big plays when they are there. He&#8217;s playing the best football I&#8217;ve seen him play,&#8221; said Ticats head coach Scott Milanovich.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t feel like we played a full four-quarter, three-phase, game again, but I thought we did in the fourth quarter, which is when we needed it the most.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Elks (1-6) continue to struggle, now with three straight losses.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re getting closer,&#8221; said Elks head coach Mark Kilam. &#8220;When good teams play each other, it is the team that makes the plays down the stretch that usually wins. We had an opportunity to do that. We did not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A white football player in a green-and-yellow uniform just threw the ball with his right hand. Opposing players are in the background, trying to move toward him.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754307369_944_fbo-cfl-tiger-cats-elks-20250802.JPG\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.3501144164759726\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Edmonton Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo was efficient despite the loss, completing 20 of his 25 passes. (Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton looked like it meant business right from the opening kickoff, which was returned 75 yards by Isaiah Wooden Sr. Two plays later, Mitchell completed a 24-yard touchdown pass to Kiondre Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Edmonton shrugged off the shock and responded on its first possession with a touchdown of its own, as quarterback Cody Fajardo engineered a long drive, capped off by a 10-yard run into the end zone by Justin Rankin.<\/p>\n<p>However, Hamilton punched right back with a long drive of its own, culminating in a two-yard TD run by Greg Bell.<\/p>\n<p>The Elks once again bounced back as Steven Dunbar Jr. made a nice play shrugging off a defender for a 25-yard reception, setting up a one-yard rushing major by Cole Snyder.<\/p>\n<p>Edmonton looked poised to take its first lead late in the second quarter, but the Cats&#8217; defence came up huge, stopping the Elks on two consecutive goal-line stands from the one-yard-line on attempts by Snyder to turn the ball over on downs and keep the game tied 14-14 at the half.<\/p>\n<p>The Elks responded with another solid drive to start the third quarter, finished by a 13-yard TD pass from Fajardo to Rankin.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A Black football player wearing a green-and-yellow uniform is carrying the football in his left arm. He is brought to the ground by an opposing player in a white-and-black uniform, in front of an orange pilon.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754307370_302_fbo-cfl-tiger-cats-elks-20250802.JPG\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.3258426966292134\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>The Elks&#8217; Steven Dunbar is tackled just short of a touchdown during the first half of Saturday&#8217;s game. (Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>The see-saw battle continued as Hamilton responded with a three-yard TD catch by White.<\/p>\n<p>Then at 3:17 p.m. local time, with just 18 seconds remaining in the third quarter, lightning strikes were reported in the vicinity of Commonwealth Stadium and the game was delayed until almost 4:30 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Edmonton got a huge play with 9:56 left in the fourth as punter Cody Grace was the first to get to his own sky-high kick and knocked it forward for teammate Luke Burton-Krahn to pick it up. The play led to a 33-yard field goal by Vincent Blanchard.<\/p>\n<p>After Fajardo was intercepted on a long-bomb attempt by Stavros Katsantonis, the Tiger-Cats marched down the field and completed a 27-yard touchdown pass to White to take a four-point lead with two minutes left.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was definitely a close game, so being able to grind it out and catch the win definitely feels good,&#8221; White said. &#8220;I feel as a team we keep our composure throughout the process and late in games we are just able to finish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Edmonton had a late chance as Fajardo hit Kaion Julien-Grant in the end zone with a long pass, but he dropped it. The Elks turned over the ball on downs and Hamilton ran out the clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not even the threat of lightning could knock the Hamilton Tiger-Cats out of their zone. Tim White reeled&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-44461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}