Riptide Fall to Talons at Home
Keith Antigiovanni
Sunday April 21, 2002
San Diego took an early 8-0 lead when the Riptide special teams forced a safety on the opening kickoff and a touchdown run. Tulsa’s defense dug in the stuffed the San Diego until the end of the first half while the Talons offense got on track after a horrible performance last week. Quarterback Anthony Buich directed four touchdown drives in the first half and was named Game MVP. “All week long wanted to focus on execution, so we dictated to them and didn’t let them dictate to us,” Buich said.
Tulsa’s defense, particularly its defensive line controlled the game by sacking San Diego quarterback Kane Claunch four times, forced two intentional grounding calls and pressured him numerous other times into incompletions. “Give them a lot of credit. They were a bigger and more physical group than us tonight. Not to make any excuses but we were dinged up. We had fullback Brian Berg as starting center for us and Scottie Nicholson in for an injured Ryan Cuthbert. Playing against guys who are 315 across the board with guys about 250, your going to get a better push up the middle which they did,” Riptide line coach Tim White said. Despite the constant pressure Claunch hung in and tried to get San Diego back into the game with two touchdown passes to Marty Graham. “He (Claunch) held his poise. He took a beating tonight,” White added.
For San Diego it was a total mismatch on the line as the Riptide played without two-thirds of its line with starting center Jason Henry out and sack-leader Ryan Cuthbert out after a first quarter injury. “(I told them at halftime) That we were going to win the game. I still believed it; we were down by seven and come back and then our offense stalled. And that’s completely on me. I run the whole offense and I didn’t do my job tonight. They just brought the pressure up the middle and around outside. We didn’t have an answer for it. We knew that their strength was their line and that we were going to have to play good up front to beat them,” Morris said.
Even in defeat the Riptide can be pleased that they were competitive throughout the game and continued to scratch and claw their way even when it was apparent that they were overmatched. Credit Morris with getting his team ready to play and keeping them focused against a tough opponent.
It doesn’t get any easier for San Diego as they travel to Arkansas to play the Twisters. The Twisters clobbered Wichita 60-13 this week. The Riptide will be back at home in two weeks against Louisville.
Keith Antigiovanni is a free-lance writer in San Diego, California. He has worked for several local newspapers covering sports, government and business. Keith started writing in 1995 after graduating with a Bachelors Degree in Mass Media Communications from the University of San Diego. Aside from working as a sportswriter he has a side business of providing marketing assistance/research for small businesses and also directs,produces and hosts a regular public access television show on Time-Warner Cable named "San Diego Yesterday". Antigiovanni is also a member of the San Diego Sportswriter Association.
