Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
It seems that the Tiger-Cats never received the message being bandied about by the media all week. While people outside of the organization were suggesting that the result of Saturday’s game didn’t matter to Hamilton, Hamilton was busy preparing to win a football game.
Even though the fourth quarter saw the Lions eventually rally to win the game, it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort from the Ticats.
“In this business you’re only as good as your last play and we’ve got to win games like this,” said Ticats defensive end Stevie Baggs. “I love my family but I’m not trying to be home for (American) Thanksgiving, so I’m happy that we came out as hard as we did but we needed to be able to finish this game.”
One of the main goals this week was to improve on the level of execution compared to last week’s game in Calgary, and after amassing 287 yards through the air and connecting for three touchdowns, it was a step in the right direction.
“Execution-wise,we were definitely much better than last week, it was really some small mental errors that killed us today,” said offensive tackle Alexandre Gauthier.
“It was weird because everyone expected them to come out here fighting for their lives and we were more aggressive, faster and more physical than them,” he added.
Now that the regular season is over, the Ticats can reflect on some of the accomplishments that made 2010 such a special season.
After not allowing a sack in Saturday’s game, the Ticats O-line wrapped up the title of least sacks allowed, with 26.
“That’s something that we take a lot of pride in, but we have to give a lot of credit to the quarterback and receivers too,” said Gauthier.
“That’s as much a reflection of Kevin making good decisions and the receivers running good routes,” he added.
Towards the end of the second quarter Kevin Glenn accomplished a feat that only one other quarterback in Ticats history has accomplished by throwing for 5,000 yards in a season. Glenn’s mark of 5,104 yards puts him second behind only Danny McManus in the Ticat record books and is the second time that he has passed the 5,000-yard mark in his career.
Receiver Dave Stala not only went over the 1,000 yard mark for the second time in his career, he also set a new personal best for receptions with 85. Stala has been Glenn’s main weapon on second down all season and parlayed that confidence from his teammates into a stellar season that could see him be named the Most Outstanding Canadian in the East Division.
