Second half surge pushes Knights past Firecats
Keith Murphy
Sunday August 3, 2003
Porter’s halftime sermon re-kindled the Knights. According to Macon FB/LB Byron Douzart, “He told us to believe in each other. As long as we stick together nobody can stop us. And you see what happened when we stuck together.”
The second half comeback was fueled by interceptions by Tremaine Neal and Michael Carraway and incredible defensive surge which gave up only seven second half points and shut down Florida’s last-second drive at the two yard line. “That was huge for us," said Porter. "We felt we had a good plan coming into the game offensively and defensively. But, we just weren’t executing in the first half. Guys were a little keyed-up and were trying to do too much. But we settled down in the second half and started playing defense like we’ve been coaching all week. With everybody buying into what we were doing, we were able to create some turnovers.”
Despite all of the Macon fireworks in the second half, Florida had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds. As the clock ran out, Firecat QB Ken Mastrole tossed the ball to Cainon Lamb. When the sweep was jammed by the Macon defense, Lamb tried a pass which was intercepted by Denario Smalls to seal the win. “It’s not a designed pass,” Firecats’ head coach, Ben Bennett, said of the final play. “We were supposed to run the sweep and not everybody ran their proper assignment. . . . All we wanted to do was see if we could punch it in with Cainon and call time-out and try to run the last play of the game for a touchdown. I didn’t expect Cainon to try to throw it.”
It was the second-half mistakes that proved to be the ‘Cats downfall. “Macon’s a well-coached football team,” said Bennett. “When we made mistakes, they’re going to capitalize.”
Porter says that he is proud of the way his team performed under pressure, “I’m so proud of these guys. To be down two touchdowns twice in the game and to keep fighting and keep believing that you are going to win the game; it’s just a great credit to these guys.”
With the win, the Knights break a year-long, three game drought against Florida. “I feel pretty good,” Porter said. “You’ve got to give Florida a lot of credit. They’ve got a good football team and they always seem to play well against us. But, today, our guys just wouldn’t be denied.”
“You don’t know how it feels,” said Knights’ Line Coach, Webbie Burnett. “Losing three times in a row [to Florida]. It gets frustrating to lose to these guys. They are a superior team, don’t get me wrong. But, you beat a team like that – hey, you can’t help but to celebrate.”
With the win, the Knights move on to the second round of the af2 playoffs for the second year in a row. Saturday night, the Albany Conquest will host the Knights. In the other American Conference semi-final, Mohegan travels to Huntsville to tackle the Tennessee Valley Vipers.
Dr. Murphy has nearly 20 years of media experience ranging from radio to the Internet. He has served as webmaster for two AF2 teams and the football team at Fort Valley State University. He is a professor at FVSU and directs www.bunniwerks.org, a non-profit rabbit rescue organization. He has been commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel. Murphy is also serving as a first party editor of af2 stories for ArenaFfan. For more information about Dr. Murphy see: www.keithmurphy.info
