Preds Go Down Fighting in Cleveland
Adam Markowitz
Sunday August 10, 2014
CLEVELAND -- Apparently, it takes a Predator to beat a Predator. Dominic Jones, who was playing with the Orlando Predators last year, helped send his former mates to their graves on Sunday afternoon, as the Cleveland Gladiators won the American Conference Championship Game 56-46.
You're not going to find Jones all over the stat sheet, but there is no doubt that he was the player of the game for the Glads. After the two teams traded touchdowns for a quarter and a half, Jones picked up a Bernard Morris fumble on the goal line and raced it 48 yards the other direction. It's just going to look like a long fumble return without a touchdown, but it was the play that gave the Gladiators an appreciable advantage.
Orlando won the battle of the clock at the end of the half after scoring with 9.7 seconds left in the second quarter, and that's what got the game back on par. However, with the first drive of the second half, Jones made an impact on the game once again by tipping a pass in the air that was picked off by Joe Phinisee.
After the first Cleveland turnover of the game, it was Jones who got his hands on a ball on fourth down in the end zone to turn the ball back over to the Gladiators.
The Predators were never really in the game again, as they were never as close as they were when that pass fell incomplete between Greg Carr and Larry Brackins.
To Morris' credit, he played as good of a game as he has played in the postseason in his career. He showed some real grit on a fourth down scramble for a touchdown that put Orlando back within a score early in the final stanza, and he finished the day with 360 passing yards with four TDs and one INT and the one fumble.
However, B-Mo also started the game completing 18 of his first 24 passes. He finished by completing just 13 of his final 28 passes.
Morris didn't get a lot of help from his mates either. Several passes were dropped on the day in crucial spots by all of the receivers, and the offensive line couldn't contain the Cleveland defensive line when it really counted the most. On top of everything else, he was playing in front of a defense which only had one stop for the whole game, and he was playing on a bum ankle that visibly kept him down. Mark Lewis also missed a pair of extra points in the fourth quarter, and he only hit the net on one of his kickoffs all night long. The kick return team only averaged 12.3 yards per kick return to boot.
That being said, the Predators have nothing to be ashamed of. After a season in which some ArenaFan writer said that they would win four games, they fought all the way through the American Conference Championship Game. They hosted a playoff game for the first time since 2006, and they overcame ownership issues which moved them to the significantly smaller CFE Arena from the Amway Center.
Orlando will head home though, as Cleveland marches on to the ArenaBowl for the first time in its history. The Gladiators will host either the San Jose SaberCats or the Arizona Rattlers on August 23rd.
The city of Cleveland hasn't won a championship since 1964 when the Browns won the NFL title in 1964.
