Hamilton Tiger-Cats roll to 2nd win, beat Winnipeg Blue Bombers

| American Football | 06/30/2018

HAMILTON — There were a lot of positives on both sides of the ball for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Friday’s 31-17 win — including a performance that sparked a battle at the position of Canadian running back.

After Mercer Timmis’s monster 133-yard, two-touchdown performance in Week 2, it was Sean Thomas-Erlington’s turn to break out on Friday to the tune of 92 bruising, juking yards.

Then again: Timmis had a pair of goal-line touchdowns against the Bombers too, complicating things further.

One thing is for sure: Hamilton head coach June Jones is happy to see Thomas-Erlington, an eighth-round draft pick in 2017, excelling.

“I knew they hadn’t seen 31, and I knew he had ability,” Jones told CFL.ca following Friday’s win. “He’s worked hard for two years, and I’m glad he got to come in and excel on national television.”

The Montreal, Que. native nearly found the end zone for his first career major late in the first quarter, but was tripped up on the Winnipeg one-yard line following a scintillating 12-yard run.

He later turned heads with a monstrous 23-yard gain that included a hurdle.

“I wanted to get Erls in the game, he’s been working real hard — I’d gone into the game thinking he was going to play a lot,” continued Jones, who also explained the reason he went to Timmis down near the goal line.

“He’s a little heavier runner when it gets condensed down, tighter and they’re playing more gap defence,” explained Jones. “I could’ve left Erls in there — he’s a good inside runner — (but) I had it going in that I’d use the bigger guy on short yardage.”

Ticats quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who threw for more than 300 yards in an eighth-straight game against Winnipeg, lauded Thomas-Erlington’s performance.

“He’s our sleeper man,” beamed Masoli, “he’s been a baller since the first time he came here, and it’s awesome to see him get that opportunity.

“There weren’t too many times before when we had 100(-yard) rush games, but we’re feeling pretty good about the run game right now.”

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