Vipers Bounce Back With Huge Win, 56-16
Michael Vergane
Monday May 28, 2001
The Tennessee Valley Vipers showed no signs of a hangover from last weeks loss to Quad City and pounded the Peoria Pirates 56-16 in Peoria on Friday evening.
The Vipers now climb to 7-1 at the halfway point of the season. The Pirates fall to 4-4.
The Viper defensive front put pressure on Peoria quarterback Sean Hoolihan all evening and held him to a season low 8 of 21 for 79 yards and one interception.
The Vipers jumped out to an early 14-3 lead by way of a 5 yard touchdown pass from Matt Sauk to Howard Maxwell and a touchdown pass by WR/DB Pat House to Matt Sauk which came off of a reverse.
On the first play from scrimmage after the score, Pirate QB Sean Hoolihan was flushed from the pocket and fumbled away the ball to Tennessee Valley. On the ensuing drive, Matt Sauk ran the ball in on a 3rd and goal from the 3 yard line to give the Vipers a commanding 21-3 lead early in the second quarter. A lead that they would build upon.
Going into the game the question was how would the Vipers react coming off of a disappointing loss to the Quad City Steamwheelers. Tennessee Valley quarterback Matt Sauk said a short week of practices added to the problem.
“It was hard because we were coming off a tough game with Quad City and everyone was looking forward to it and we didn’t have the greatest of practices this week. But we knew we had to get this win. So we came with a business like attitude and we performed.”
Tennessee Valley came out firing on all eight thanks to a Pirate defense that showed then something they weren’t expecting. “They were playing a lot of man defense”, said Sauk. “And when they’re playing man-to-man I’ll take our guys over anyone’s guys. Maxwell, Kelly, House and Bonner were beating their men almost every down. It was nice to see.”
Perhaps another non-football surprise added to the spark put into the Vipers.
Before the game, the Viper players were introduced to the crowd while “Dueling Banjos” blared over the Carver Arena sound system. To add insult, the Pirates P.A. announced did his best ‘Jed Clampett’ impersonation as he introduced the players. “The kicker, #3, Michael Proctor. Git on out here Michael!”
When the Pirates came out to their choreographed intro, Viper players Robert Gordon and Curtis Jeter did their best to disrupt the introductions. Game officials and Peoria Head Coach Gary Porter had to step in to keep a full-scale brawl from breaking out before the game even began.
Whether any of the pre-game theatrics had anything to do with the early tempo of the game is debatable. However, several Viper players and staff members stated that this win was the best game played by Tennessee Valley to date this year.
Next week, the Vipers return home to play the Arkansas Twisters. Peoria will host the Louisville Fire.
Notes – Commisioner Mary Ellen Garling was in attendance Friday evening. Speaking on the expansion to be announced officially in June, she expected that the Midwest markets of Madison, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois would probably not join the af2 until 2003.
-Offical statistics were not available at time of writing due to a computer malfunction with the Peoria statistics program.
Michael Vergane was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2002.
