Geoff Robins/CFL.ca
HAMILTON — The Montreal Alouettes rolled into Hamilton on Friday night looking to cement their lead atop the East Division and they did just that.
A dominant performance on defence combined with Davis Alexander and Caleb Evans‘ efficient play in the red zone gave the Als a 33-16 result on the road, taking them to 7-1 on the season.
Here are CFL.ca’s three key stats from the Alouettes’ win over the Tiger-Cats.
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57 – SCORELESS MINUTES FROM HAMILTON’S OFFENCE
The Alouettes’ renowned defensive unit showed up to play in Hamilton.
Even though a pick-six in the second quarter gave the home team the advantage, the Ticats offence couldn’t get anything done with the football through the vast majority of the game. It took until the 2:45 mark of the fourth quarter for the Tabbies to reel off their first scoring play on offence, but by then it was too late.
Bryce Cosby and Kabion Ento came up with interceptions of their own to stifle Mitchell, who finished with a season-low 240 passing yards. The Als defence as a whole was able to keep Hamilton out of the red zone, not even allowing their opponent a field goal try.
3 – BIG PLAYS FROM MONTREAL’S OFFENCE
With their defence shutting down Mitchell and company on one end, limiting the hosts to no big plays on the day, an Alexander-led Montreal offence put up three big plays of their own.
After a first-quarter stalemate, Alexander got into his groove on a six-play, 80-yard scoring drive midway through the second frame. Alexander found Tyson Philpot and Reggie White Jr. with nice 19-yard grabs and soon after connected on a 24-yard touchdown pass to Charleston Rambo.
In the third quarter, a run of 26 yards from Walter Fletcher kickstarted another possession which resulted in a touchdown. Rambo was a yard away from hauling in his second touchdown of the game on a deep 39-yard throw at the right sideline before Evans ran the ball in from a yard out.
2 – MONTREAL QUARTERBACKS
No Cody Fajardo, no problem for these Alouettes.
After riding out a 20-16 win over Saskatchewan at home with the quarterback tandem of Alexander and Evans in Week 8, the duo got it done again in Week 9, even though both were banged up in the game.
Alexander got the start, going 19-27 with a touchdown pass and interception. He left the game temporarily after taking a hit from Hamilton’s Casey Sayles which resulted in a 25-yard unnecessary roughness penalty before coming back in for Evans who suffered an injury of his own late in the game after rushing out of the pocket.
