Despite a woeful start, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats roared back to beat the Montreal Alouettes 30-15 Saturday afternoon and finished the CFL pre-season with a record of 1-1.
Hamilton did not register a first down over the first 23 minutes of the game and had -4 yards of offence in the first quarter.
But after falling behind Montreal 14-0 in the second quarter, the Ticats rattled off 30 consecutive points.
Cats quarterback Johnny Manziel provided a spark by throwing his first touchdown pass in the Canadian Football League, a three-yard score to running back Alex Green. Manziel, who replaced an ineffective Bryant Moniz, completed 12 of his 20 pass attempts for 88 yards and rushed four times for 19 yards.
In his two preseason appearance, Manziel went 21-for-31 (67.7 per cent) for 160 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions.
Moniz got the starting nod for the Tiger-Cats and went 3-for-7 for 17 yards and an interception. It was Hamilton’s only turnover of the game after they committed an astonishing 10 turnovers in last week’s 36-18 loss to Toronto. Fellow pivot Dane Evans came in towards the end of the game and was 5-of-6 for 65 yards.
The game was Green’s first of the pre-season, after he missed the start of Hamilton’s training camp for personal reasons. The Portland, Oregon native ran nine times for 28 yards.
Hamilton took its first lead of the contest when defensive back Joel Ross intercepted Montreal QB Garrett Fugate and sprinted 38 yards to the end zone to make it 20-14.
Nine different players made at least one reception for Hamilton. Rashad Lawrence had a team-high four receptions and Justin Buren recorded a game-high 46 receiving yards.
Drew Willy started for the Alouettes, who lost both of their exhibition games, and completed 10 of his 18 throws for 105 yards.
Ticats running back Sean Thomas-Erlington added a one-yard touchdown run midway through the fourth quarter to ice the victory.
Ticats kicker Lirim Hajrullahu made good on both of his field goal attempts, while emergency kicker Felix Faubert-Lussier also got in on the action by converting two extra point kicks, and a 19-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. He also punted twice for a 33-yard average.
Hamilton’s defence had five sacks (Adrian Tracy, Jason Neill, Malik Forrester, Nikita Whitlock and Jackson Bennett) and safety Mike Daly registered a team-high four defensive tackles and two special-teams tackles.
The Tiger-Cats visit the Calgary Stampeders in the first game of the regular season on Saturday, June 16 at 7 p.m. After the game, listen to The 5th Quarter on 900 CHML.