HAMILTON \u2014 Bo Levi Mitchell won the showdown between last year\u2019s CFL outstanding player finalists.<\/p>\n
Mitchell tied his career high with five touchdown passes to lead Hamilton past the B.C. Lions 41-27 on Friday, giving the Tiger-Cats their second straight victory and first at home this season. The 14-year veteran also took much of the spotlight from Lions star quarterback Nathan Rourke, who was named the 2025 MOP despite Mitchell having more passing yards (5,296 to 5,290) and TDs (36 to 31).<\/p>\n
Rourke, though was the league\u2019s top-rushing quarterback last season with 564 yards and 10 touchdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a chip on my shoulder last year when it happened but that\u2019s not to say he wasn\u2019t deserving of it, he was,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIt\u2019s always extra motivation going into a game but it\u2019s not against any single quarterback.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single team has an amazing quarterback right now. Its going to be tough sledding no matter who we play but it definitely was a little extra motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell was 15-of-18 passing for 285 yards as the Ticats (2-1) earned their first win in four home games versus B.C. (0-2) before an announced Hamilton Stadium gathering of 20,402. Not since \u201919 have the Lions opened a season with consecutive losses.<\/p>\n
Rourke, also the CFL\u2019s top Canadian last season, was 24-of-35 passing for 291 yards with a TD and interception while being sacked three times. However, B.C.\u2019s offence was minus receivers Keon Hatcher Sr. (thigh), Stanley Berryhill III (thigh), Seven McGee (foot) and Canadian Jevon Cottoy (thigh) while Kieran Poissant and Canadian Justin McInnis were both hurt during the contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been part of something like this, it\u2019s absolutely crazy how unlucky we\u2019ve been this early in the season,\u201d Rourke said \u201cWe\u2019ve had a bunch of guys go down, we\u2019ve had injuries up front on our offensive line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know how to explain it but it\u2019s certainly a huge obstacle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell, 36, is off to a fabulous start to the season, having completed 68-of-81 passes (84 per cent) for 879 yards with eight TDs and an interception.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of trust between us (Mitchell and head coach\/playcaller Scott Milanovich) right now,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to do the right thing and he\u2019s trusting me to take the shots when I see them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got an amazing receiving crew \u2026 every single person can make crazy catches and plays down the field. It makes it tough on DBs, makes it tough to run zone but no one is going to run man against us. This (B.C.) is a team that runs heavy man and I don\u2019 think they ran man against us one snap. It just shows teams know and understand who we are as an offence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell\u2019s fifth TD pass \u2014 the fourth time he\u2019s done that over his 14-year CFL career \u2014 came 21 seconds into the fourth, a 24-yard strike to Kurleigh Gittens Jr. that put Hamilton ahead 41-12.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re having run right now because we\u2019re doing our job and what we\u2019re supposed to do,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cThe elephant in the room, everybody obviously knows they lost five starting receivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t use it as an excuse at all to kind of relax. I think our defence did a heck of a job shutting them down and still shutting down one of the best quarterbacks in the game, one of the best running backs (James Butler) in the game. We took advantage of what we could.<\/p>\n
Rourke found Canadian rookie Nick Cenacle on a 14-yard TD pass at 11:19. Then Cenacle caught an 18-yard touchdown toss at 14:17 from backup Chase Brice, who was six-of-seven passing for 87 yards.<\/p>\n
Max Mang, with two, Kiondre Smith, Jake Dolegala and Kenny Lawler had Hamilton\u2019s other touchdowns. Marc Liegghio added five converts.<\/p>\n
B.C.\u2019s Sean Whyte had four field goals and two converts. Carl Meyer added a single.<\/p>\n
Mitchell\u2019s 49-yard TD pass to Lawler at 12:16 of the second staked Hamilton to its 27-9 halftime advantage. It followed Stavros Katsantonis\u2019s interception.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was big,\u201d Milanovich said. \u201cThat kind of put us where we needed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never feel like a game is over but that one made it tough for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton scored four touchdowns on its six first-half possessions, including its first three to open the contest. B.C. also scored the first three times it had the ball but in the form of Whyte field goals to fall behind 21-9 before Katsantonis\u2019s interception.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t do it,\u201d Rourke said. \u201cI thought we moved the ball well all game, didn\u2019t finish enough with touchdowns and I\u2019ll take responsibility for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Milanovich: \u201cI felt like it was a back-and-forth game early but the difference was our defence kept them out of the end zone. We\u2019ve improved a lot in our redzone defence and that\u2019s a good thing obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMILTON \u2014 Bo Levi Mitchell won the showdown between last year\u2019s CFL outstanding player finalists. Mitchell tied his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-753664","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\/753664","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=753664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}