Toronto holds off New Jersey Upset/Comeback
Tom Ando
Tuesday July 17, 2001
During Saturday night’s game at the Air Canada Centre it seemed like right from the get-go the Gladiators were in trouble as the Phantoms scored on a 40-yard touchdown pass from Chad Salisbury to Charlie Davidson, who followed up the score with flips in the end zone.
New Jersey’s plan to strike right back blew up in their faces as quarterback Connell Maynor fumbled the team’s first snap of the game, which lead to a David White touchdown run of three yards, but on their next possession, New Jersey would jump right back into the thick of the game with a 49 yards touchdown pass from Maynor to wide receiver/defensive back Coco Blalock. From that point on, the game would be a battle between New Jersey’s nothing to lose mentality and Toronto’s fight for a division title.
At the half, Toronto held on to a 31-21 lead that could’ve been greater had New Jersey’s Jeroid Johnson not returned an interception 23 yards for a score with 32 seconds left in the half.
The back and forth struggle would continue in the second half deep into the final minutes as New Jersey finally tied up the game on a two yard touchdown run by Maynor. With 47 seconds left, Salisbury hooked up with receiver Ty Law to give the Phantoms a seven-point lead, which set the stage for Connell Maynor to display last second heroics, but the crowd thought otherwise as the hostile Canadian fans became louder than ever. The Toronto players seemed to feed off of the frenzy by shutting down New Jersey and preserving the lead and a win that keeps them atop the Eastern Division.
“It was a little harder than I thought it was going to be but you’ve just got to tough it out,” said Toronto lineman Frank Moore. “New Jersey, they play hard every game, I think they’re the most physical team in the league right now.”
“They played us tough the first game when we beat them by three points, and we knew they are one that won’t give up,” said Davidson, who finished with a game high seven receptions as well as two touchdowns, earning him Ironman honors. “It doesn’t matter how much they get down, they’re a team that fights, and you’ve got to give a lot of credit to those guys. The guys don’t have that many wins this year, and they come out fighting that hard, so all the credit goes to them and their coaching staff.”
Players may have different opinions on whether or not New Jersey surprised them, but they all agreed that it was a great win.
“I think it was one of the hardest fought wins we’ve had all year,” said Salisbury who was 24 of 35 for 297 yards and five touchdowns. “Both times we’ve beat this team, they’ve been one of the toughest teams we’ve played.”
“I thought it was a big win for us especially since we started out early and then faced some adversity,” said Davidson. “I think it was a great chance for us to show what we can do when we’re facing adversity, especially since we’re trying to get a start on the playoffs. That way, in the playoffs, we know if things start to go bad, we won’t have to start pointing fingers and everything. We can just stay together and we’ll come out victorious.”
The victory was Toronto’s fourth straight making them 7-6, and with a win next week in Carolina (7-6), will clinch the division, giving them a home playoff game, but the players refuse to look past the Cobras.
“We can’t talk about the playoffs right now,” said Salisbury. “Next week is our playoff game, we win and we’ll get in, but if we lose, we probably won’t.”
“Right now we really haven’t started thinking about it (the playoffs),” said Davidson. “Right now we’re just focused on Carolina, going down there and taking care of business so we can hopefully bring a home game back here to Toronto, and these great fans. When we get people here and the fans come out, it’s hard to beat us.”
Toronto’s winning streak has given the team the type of confidence needed to win an ArenaBowl title.
“Right now, we’re playing the best we have the whole year,” said Moore. “So as long as we keep playing this hard, I don’t think anybody can beat us.”
"Touchdown" Tom Ando is a free lance writer from South Buffalo, NY and has been covering the Arena Football League in one capacity or another since the 2000 season, when he was 17 years old. Tom Currently writes for Sports & Leisure Magazine in Buffalo covering the NLL's Buffalo Bandits and NCAA Division I football. In 2001, Tom was the only writer in the country to cover the Houston "Travelin' " Thunderbears, where he befriended his mentor John F. "Hondo" Hahn.
