Gladiators creep even further into the playoff picture
Will Burge
Saturday May 10, 2008
The Cleveland Gladiators remained hot Friday night defeating the Orlando Predators 62-43 in front of 13,808 fans. It didn’t matter that Orlando came into Cleveland winning 7 of their last 8 games because quarterback Raymond Philyaw had another phenomenal performance. He completed 23-31 passes for 280 yards and 7 touchdowns. The league’s number one receiver T. T. Toliver was kept reasonably under wraps managing to gain 117 yards but only one touchdown catch.
Besides their very first drive of the game when they took a 6-0 lead, Cleveland was in control the whole way. They set the precedent of what type of day this would be on their very first possession when they were inside Orlando’s five yard line. Raymond Philyaw took the snap and pitched the ball to Robert Redd who in turn hit Philyaw in the corner of the endzone for his first career touchdown reception.
“We worked on it all week long. He threw me enough touchdowns this year I thought I would try to return the favor and get him one.” Redd said of the trick play.
“I’m no receiver. It hadn’t worked in practice so I was surprised the coach called it. I got the best hands on the team. Make sure you write that in the paper!” Philyaw said in jest when asked about his first touchdown reception of his career.
That was just the beginning of the fun for Philyaw as he completed 12-19 passes for 118 yards and 3 touchdowns in the first half alone. Riding the veteran quarterback’s shoulders, the Gladiators were up 27-22 at the break. Being up at halftime was a huge key to victory today for the Gladiators.
“We wanted to get our (touchdown) which we did and we left a little bit of time on the clock. It was big for us to hold them to just a field goal.” Coach Mike Wilpolt said when asked of the strong first half finish.
The second half brought more good times for the Gladiators who desperately needed to create another winning streak. After starting the season 3-0, they dropped 4 of their next 5 games before defeating the Philadelphia Soul last week.
Towards the end of the third quarter Philyaw connected on a deep touchdown pass with Robert Redd for the third time in the game. It gave the Gladiators a comfortable 48-29 lead but it also put Redd over 1,000 receiving yards for the year. He is the first Gladiator to achieve this milestone.
Redd was very modest about the accomplishment saying, “It’s a team deal though. I couldn’t have did that without the line protecting, without Ray getting the ball out there, and our receivers making blocks down field. It’s an accomplishment not just for me but for our whole offense.”
With momentum on their side the Gladiators never looked back. They handed the Predators their fourth loss of the season (7-4) while improving their own record to 6-4. If the playoffs started today the Gladiators would be in, a fact that is quite the contrary to preseason expectations from national prognosticators.
Redd said his team is focused and not worried about the playoff race.
“Hay man, our next game is our biggest game. We are going to take it a game at a time and at the end of the season we’ll let the chips fall where they do.”
The Gladiators’ offense was spectacular all around. Robert Redd finished with 9 receptions for 126 yards and 3 touchdowns and Otis Amey had 7 receptions for 78 yards and 3 touchdowns.
The story of the game though was the defense. The Gladiators’ defensive unit played their most complete game of the year with a sack, a forced fumble, and four broken up passes. They twice held Orlando to turnover-on-downs, recovered a fumble on one possession, and held them to just a field goal on yet another.
When asked if this was the defenses most dominating game thus far defensive lineman Joe Minucci said, “It looks like it right now. That may be the lowest points we have given up all year. Right now I would say so but we will see when we watch the film on Monday.”
The Gladiators look to get revenge on the road next week against the Colorado Crush who came into Cleveland and beat them earlier this season. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:00pm.
