HAMILTON, Ont. \u2014 No official practice, no problem for Tre Ford.<\/p>\n
The Niagara Falls, Ont., native threw for 218 yards and a touchdown and ran for a game-high 109 yards as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats nipped the Toronto Argonauts 24-23 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
It was Ford’s first start for the Tiger-Cats and followed a week where poor air quality relegated them to mostly indoor walk-through practices.<\/p>\n
“When you have a week like this when you don’t get a lot of practise, having legs definitely helps,” said Ford. “It’s tough to get to those third and fourth reads when you don’t practise.<\/p>\n
“Those are the kind of things you want to practise and be able to see through against a defence \u2026 It was obviously nice to go out there and get the win, but I definitely want practice next week.”<\/p>\n
Ford finished 21-of-27 passing and his athleticism helped Hamilton (3-3) convert 15-of-23 second-down chances. The Ticats earned their first win in three games but more importantly their first since starter Bo Levi Mitchell (ankle) was hurt in a 14-13 home loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on July 5.<\/p>\n
Hamilton won despite finishing with a makeshift offensive line as tackles Trevor Reid and Quinton Barrow were hurt. That forced guards Brandon Revenberg and Nate Dumoulin-Duguay to kick outside, centre Liam Dobson and tight end Max Mang to go to guard and backup centre Kris Kolankowski to replace Dobson.<\/p>\n
Still, Hamilton needed a little divine intervention for the win. Veteran Toronto kicker Lirim Hajrullahu missed a 31-yard field goal on the game’s final play after the Argos (2-4) drove 58 yards on seven plays.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a fair game,” said Hamilton head coach Scott Milanovich. “But every now and then you get what you deserve and I felt like that’s what happened tonight at the end.”<\/p>\n
Hajrullahu also missed a convert that allowed Hamilton to cling to its 24-23 advantage. And last week, he missed a 40-yard field goal attempt that was returned 129 yards for the touchdown in a 30-21 road loss to Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
But that certainly didn’t take away from Ford’s strong performance as he anchored Hamilton’s 157-yard rushing attack.<\/p>\n
“There’s a couple of throws (Ford) is going to want to have back, but I thought, all in all, the young man played amazingly well,” Milanovich said. “He gave us a shot in the arm.<\/p>\n
“He made some really good throws, obviously made some good runs. It’s pretty big, we needed that, we needed to kind of get a little belief back and I thought we did that.”<\/p>\n
Hamilton looked poised to go ahead 27-23 but kicker Marc Liegghio missed from 49 yards out. Nick Arbuckle’s one-yard TD run at 7:25 of the fourth pulled Toronto to within 24-23, capping a 10-play, 97-yard march that included unnecessary roughness and pass interference calls against Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Chad Kelly’s five-yard TD strike to David Ungerer III 46 seconds into the fourth cut Hamilton’s lead to 24-17. Kelly completed 25-of-35 passes for 322 yards with a touchdown and interception, while Tyler Kahmann registered six catches for a game-high 104 yards.<\/p>\n
“It’s always tough losing a game but it never comes down to one play, it never does,” said Toronto head coach Mike Miller. “The reality is it’s a team game.<\/p>\n
“You feel for (Hajrullahu), he’s a great teammate and a guy who’s invested in our program. I know it’s very disappointing and hurts deep but unfortunately that’s part of the game, too.”<\/p>\n
The game began on time despite both teams being sent to their dressing rooms during warm-ups due to poor air quality caused by wildfires in northwestern Ontario. Under the CFL’s air-quality policy, if the Air Quality Health Index reaches eight or higher as per metrics provided by Environment Canada, teams will be sent off the field.<\/p>\n
Both teams returned to the field at around 7:05 p.m. ET, and kickoff commenced on schedule. High air-quality readings in southern Ontario also forced Toronto indoors for its practices last week in Guelph, Ont.<\/p>\n
Kenny Lawler, Ante Litre and Jake Dolegala had Hamilton’s touchdowns. Liegghio booted the converts and a field goal.<\/p>\n
Arbuckle had two TDs for Toronto. Hajrullahu added two converts and a field goal.<\/p>\n
Liegghio connected from 11 yards out at 13:33 of the third to give Hamilton a 24-10 lead. Hajrullahu’s 12-yard boot pulled Toronto to within 21-10 at 8:50 following Dymere Miller’s 71-yard kickoff return.<\/p>\n
Dolegala staked Hamilton to a 21-7 lead with a one-yard scoring run at 6:11. It was set up by Jamal Peters’ interception and return to the Toronto 31-yard line.<\/p>\n
Litre’s one-yard TD run at 14:41 of the second gave Hamilton a 14-7 halftime lead. Ford keyed the 14-play, 100-yard march by completing six-of-seven passes for 42 yards and rushing three times for 21 yards.<\/p>\n
Ford’s 25-yard TD strike to Lawler at 10:12 of the first made it 7-7, ending an impressive eight-play, 70-yard drive on Hamilton’s first possession. Arbuckle’s one-yard touchdown run at 5:39 capped Toronto’s opening 10-play, 64-yard march that was aided by a Ticats roughing-the-passer penalty on a second-down sack.<\/p>\n
Argonauts: Visit the B.C. Lions on Saturday, July 25.<\/p>\n
Tiger-Cats: Visit the Montreal Alouettes on Sunday, July 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMILTON, Ont. \u2014 No official practice, no problem for Tre Ford. The Niagara Falls, Ont., native threw for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-813253","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\/813253","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=813253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}