Surging Tiger-Cats take on slumping Lions

Oct 1, 2014 - 3:06 PM Hamilton, ON (SportsNetwork.com) - Getting hot at just the right time, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats try to extend their winning streak to four in a row Saturday afternoon as they host the British Columbia Lions at Tim Hortons Field.

Like the rest of the teams in the East Division of the CFL, Hamilton has been mostly a speed bump for the rest of the league, but recently the squad has shown signs of life by winning three straight outings and four of the last five in order to rise to the top of the division standings.

Thanks to the 16-11 victory at Winnipeg last weekend, Hamilton now has 10 points in 12 games, giving the squad a slight edge over Montreal which also has 10 points entering Week 15 action, but has played one more game.

With points hard to come by last Saturday, Hamilton leaned on kicker Justin Medlock who knocked through three of his four field goal tries and finished with 10 of his team's 16 points. The other points came from a 22-yard rushing touchdown by Mossis Madu in the second quarter.

The 'Cats, who survived with a mere 240 yards of total offense, struggled on the ground as they logged only 58 net yards on 11 carries, 49 of those coming from Madu. Quarterback Zach Collaros converted 20-of-36 passes for 182 yards and shook off three sacks, with seven of his completed passes finding the hands of Cornell product Luke Tasker.

On the defensive side of the ball, Hamilton gave up 357 yards to the Blue Bombers on the road, but also got some help from a sloppy Winnipeg club as it was flagged 15 times for a loss of 130 yards.

While Hamilton has been slowly advancing in the division standings over in the East, back-to-back defeats has British Columbia sitting in fourth place in the West Division, ahead of only the Bombers at the moment. Last weekend, the Lions actually scored the first points of the game against Calgary on the road, a two-yard TD run by quarterback John Beck, but from there the BC offense dried up and the team was treated to a 14-7 setback.

Beck, who saw action under center a bit while relieving Kevin Glenn, did little in the way of passing, the same going for Glenn who converted just 14- of-25 attempts for 127 yards and two interceptions. Running back Andrew Harris not only posted a team-best 76 yards on 12 carries, he caught six balls for 29 yards as well, but still those numbers did little to change the outcome for the slumping Lions.

One of the most versatile weapons in the CFL this season, Harris has turned himself into a player to watch now that he tops the list for yards from scrimmage with 1,181. Harris is also third in combined yards with 1,248, although he actually stands two spots behind teammate Stefan Logan in that department, as the latter has a league-best 1,573 yards.

But as great as Harris and Logan have been for the Lions, the fact remains that this is a team that is in the bottom third in scoring, posting only 21.2 ppg, and yet they are in the top half in terms of yardage (331.5 ypg) heading into action this week. Somewhat surprisingly, BC is second in scoring defense with only 19.2 ppg allowed.

As for the Tiger-Cats, they are in the middle of the pack with 22.7 ppg allowed, slightly more than Hamilton itself is scoring (21.8 ppg) at the moment.

BC won the most recent meeting back in early August by a score of 36-29 in Vancouver, pushing the team's lead in the all-time, regular-season series to 50-33-3 dating back to 1961. In that contest, Glenn erupted for 407 passing yards and survived a pair of interceptions. The signal caller also produced 36 rushing yards and a score on only two carries for the hosts.

In addition to allowing close to 500 yards of offense to the Lions, Hamilton hindered its own potential by committing 15 penalties for a loss of 130 yards.