Brian Kicks. Rampage Win.
Kevin Sheller
Sunday April 30, 2000
“I was prepared for a long one. That was medium range, so I just banged it through,” said a nonchalant Gowins, after the victory was secured and the sound of exuberant celebration still echoed off the walls.
“That was a great, hard-fought game. That’s the kind of game you [have to] expect when you come to see us play Iowa,” said Rampage quarterback Craig Kusick, “They’re a great team; they’re a great tradition; I give them a lot of respect. We had a lot of composure once again to fight them off in the end and come out with a win. Those are the kind of games our team should win. We have a real good team this year. It’s kind of scary to see that we haven’t played our best football yet and we’re 3-0.”
Despite a combination of mistakes and outstanding defensive play by both teams, the game still came down to the standard Arena Football fate: The last team on offense was going to win. And there’s always a chance to second-guess the play call when the one-minute timing rules go into effect. In this case, the Rampage was faced with a difficult decision. They were ahead by only three points, with :38 to play. It was fourth down from the Barnstormers’ 5 yard line. Go for it and try to go up by 10? Or kick the field goal, and hope to go up by 6? Either way it’s a gamble. The Rampage kicked the field goal – and made it.
 Rampage Kicker Brian Gowins and holder Max Knake watch a successful extra point in the 39-37 victory over Iowa Image courtesy of Drew Kennedy |
Gowins had missed an extra point earlier. With the Rampage trailing by 1 point, and only :17 on the clock, it seemed his single mistake might cost the Rampage the game.
“It was my fault, we just dinged it right off the upright,” said Gowins, “It looked like that was going to be huge. That missed extra point was going to determine the game, but they scored too quick, and in this game it can turn around real fast.”
They did score too quickly. Iowa QB Aaron Garcia threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Mike Horacek with :17 to play. That was plenty of time for Kusick to engineer a drive back up field for a chance at the game winner.
After enduring an Iowa timeout, Gowins settled in for the game winning kick with :04 seconds to go. When did he know he was going to make it? “As soon as I hit it,” said Gowins “Kickers can always tell, and your holder can tell too, just by the sound of it - just how smooth it was. As soon as it took off, maybe 5 yards – you know it. You know it’s good.”
The crowd erupted, and gave Gowins a standing ovation. “This is huge. Especially the way the crowd reaction was...the place was so loud after that. In the outdoor stadium you don’t really get that reverberation off the top. Everybody was pretty excited to see that ball go through.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of being a coach in Arena Football with [kickers] Ian Howfield, Kenny Stucker, and then when I came here I had Remy Hamilton,” said Trigg. “Brian Gowins is probably the best out of all of them.”
The victory over the Iowa Barnstormers put the Grand Rapids Rampage on top of the central division at 3-0. This was a game between two teams who expect to be vying for the central division title come season’s end.
“It’s nice to look down the road and see that we’re on top of the central division,” said Kusick, “We have a good enough team that we should just take one game at a time and keep getting those wins like this. Then later on down the road, we’ll be there.”
Kevin Sheller ia founder of Arenafan Online and was the principal owner until 2004. Kevin graduated from the University of Akron with a degree in technical writing, and has been a member of the Arena Football Internet community since 1993. He has worked as a professional web programmer and is also the executive producer for a computer/video game company. The most recent Xbox title to his credit is called Hunter: The Reckoning.
