Tiger-Cats grab 1st in East with win over Roughriders

Jeff Mathews' shoulders are feeling a little lighter.

The 24-year-old rookie quarterback threw the first three touchdown passes of his CFL career to lead the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 30-15 over the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Tim Hortons Field in CFL action Friday night.

"It (feels) more like a little bit of weight off your back after playing three games," said the Cornell product. "Now it's been lifted, we can just go play and not think about it."

It was his second CFL career start with the Ticats — and his first win — after having to take over for starter Zach Collaros in the second quarter of Week 13's game against Edmonton, a 25-18 loss in which he threw two picks returned for touchdowns, one interception in the end zone and one fumble. Things weren't much better last week in his first start — a 23-20 loss to Calgary in which he threw one interception and had one fumble.

This time Mathews had zero turnovers and completed 22-of-33 pass attempts for 385 yards.

"We finally got our execution level up," he said, crediting the play-making ability of his receivers. "We were able, obviously, to... make some great plays. It was a great day."

Mathews' first TD pass was a nine-yard strike to fellow Cornell alumnus Luke Tasker midway through the second quarter that was set up by an Ed Gainey blocked punt recovered near the goal line. He followed that late in the half with a 91-yard drive ending with a six-yard strike to Tiquan Underwood and in the third with an 87-yard catch-and-run to Terrell Sinkfield — Hamilton's longest play from scrimmage this season.

Head coach Kent Austin had been saying all week his starter just needed to get some game experience.

"When he gets that experience, and has to face different situations and conditions and adversity and things, he'll get a lot better, and he has," said Austin. "He was very poised I thought today. We protected him well and the receivers really played well. They made some big catches, some big plays for him. But he was very accurate."

Hamilton snapped a two-game losing skid to improve to 9-5 and take sole possession of first place in the CFL East. Saskatchewan fell to 2-13 and is eliminated from playoff contention for only the second time since 2002.

"At the beginning of the year, that's the goal (making the playoffs)," said Roughrider head coach Bob Dyce. "Now realizing (we are out), it's a little disheartening. We now have three games and we are going to keep fighting. Obviously, our focus changes."

Saskatchewan was down 20-0 at the end of the first half, so rookie pivot Brett Smith was sent in to replace starter Kevin Glenn to start the second. He hit Weston Dressler for a 79-yard catch-and-run TD and Ryan Smith with a 68-yard TD strike. He also threw one interception.

Glenn made 11-of-17 pass attempts for 67 yards and one interception in the first half. Smith completed 11-of-20 pass attempts for 243 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.

Smith's opening drive ended with an interception by Courtney Stephen at the Saskatchewan 21 and returned to the 18. When Hamilton failed to get the first down on a botched fake 22-yard field-goal attempt, the Roughriders got the ball back on their own eight.

Three plays later, Smith found the wide-open Dressler downfield and the score was 20-7 4:53 into the second half.

Hamilton got that back four minutes later when Sinkfield escaped a tackle after a 10-yard pass from Mathews and ran it the rest of the way for an 87-yard score and the 27-7 lead.

Ticats kicker Justin Medlock's 18-yard field goal with 4:34 left in the game followed by Smith's 68-yard TD catch-and run, with a two-point convert with 1:57 left, finished the scoring.