Peoria Beats QC At The Mark
Steve Robinson
Sunday June 2, 2002
Head Coach Bruce Cowdrey’s Pirates won their fifth consecutive game at The Mark, beating the reigning arenafootball2 champion Steamwheelers, 67-43. The Pirates’ win was Quad Cities first home loss in the franchise’s two-and-a-half year existence.
It was also Peoria’s first victory here against a Quad City team which demoralized the Pirates in their 2001 af2 debut, drowning the Pirates, 41-0, on the Pirates’ way to finishing 7-9 last season under Coach Gary Porter.
But the memory of that humiliation melted away as Peoria (7-2) jumped out to a fast 14-0 lead in the first quarter. Pirates offensive specialist Jermaine Sheffield’s 6-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Walt Church with 10:11 left in the first quarter got Peoria sailing in the right direction.
Sheffield was Peoria’s leading receiver, snaring 9 catches for 103 yards and two touchdowns. As the game was ending, he was spotted striking a Heisman trophy-like pose in front of the Peoria section of the crowd.
“There were just a lot of emotions out there tonight,” Sheffield said. “We just made history. They have never been beat here. I was telling everybody before the game that we would make history. I have been saying (to my teammates) that we are the better team and we can prove it.”
With both Todd Kurz out to injury and his brother, Scott, returning to Purdue to begin graduate classes, extra points and field goals fell to recruit Josh White. White missed his first extra point on the night, but Peoria took a 6-0 lead.
After a 40-yard pass from Steamwheelers quarterback Tony Zimmerman to offensive specialist Ira Gooch, with 5:27 left in the first quarter, tied the game at 6-all, following a botched extra point try.
Peoria increased their lead to 14-6, thanks to a 56-yard kickoff return by special teams member Lincoln Dupree with 4:25 left in the first. A successful two-point conversion .starring Titcus Pettigrew, increased Peoria’s lead to 14-6.
Dupree added additional sting by picking off an impending Quad City scoring pass in the end zone and running back 53 yards for a Peoria touchdown. Peoria tried rushing the ball in for the conversion, but failed. Still, the effort gave Peoria a 20-8 lead with 51 seconds left in the first quarter.
A small contingent of Peoria fans among the 6,325 fans present would be pleased with their team’s result early, as Cowdrey’s crew went into the locker room at halftime with a 41-21 lead, which they would never surrender.
“(Pirates quarterback) Walter (Church) made some ungodly throws, and our receivers made some unbelievable catches,” Cowdrey said after the game. Church finished the night going 29-for-43 for 269 yards, and 7 touchdowns.
If Cowdrey had any complaints, they were directed toward his offensive front line’s seeming inability to keep defensive line players at bay. It is a complaint the second year af2 head coach has brought up before this season.
“(Church) was under pressure all night,” Cowdrey said. “We didn’t do a good enough job up front to make me happy. We let (the defense) get too much pressure on him.”
“(White) did fairly well kicking in tryouts,” Cowdrey said of Josh White, who was substituting for the Kurzes. While White did not have any field goals to put through the uprights, he missed 3 of 8 of his extra points.
This prompted Cowdrey to tell Todd Kurz, as Kurz was heading into the locker room after the game, “You’d better have your little brother ready to go for next week.”
Part of winning this grudge match includes being able to hold on to the coveted “Ruler Of The River” Trophy, as a symbol of the victory until the next time the two sides meet next season.
The trophy, which stands two feet high, showing a pirate ship and a paddleboat racing on rushing waters, encased in glass. The game winner holds the trophy until the teams meet again. In this case, that won’t be until next season.
Cowdrey and company take their five-game winning streak to Honolulu next Saturday, where they will play the expansion Hawaiian Islanders.
Steve Robinson, a freelance writer since 1984, has written about the Peoria Pirates since the Pirates were members of Indoor Football League, beginning in 1999. He covers the Pirates currently for the Bloomington IL Pantagraph.
