Riptide Trounce Fresno 67-33, Closing in on Playoff Spot
Keith Antigiovanni
Tuesday July 2, 2002
The win over Fresno reduces San Diego’s magic number for the playoffs to 0.5 as they hold 2.5 game lead over third-place Fresno in the Western Division. In case of a tie-breaker with the Frenzy, the Riptide hold a 2-1 series advantage virtually assuring them of a playoff spot.
After a month of slow starts, the Riptide finally started strong by jumping to a 21-0 first quarter lead. However two fumbles by kick returner Aaazar Al-Rahim allowed Fresno to get back into the game in the second period and trailed only 27-20 at half-time. But for the second straight week, the second half was San Diego’s as they blew out the overwhelmed Frenzy by a score of 40-13.
Against Fresno, Morris revealed another weapon on offense: WR/LB Jerry Garrett, who scored four touchdowns (3 rushing, 1 receiving) on the evening.
“I knew he (Garrett) could play, we just had to get him healthy. He’s done a great job. Both of our WR/LB (Rico Curtis and Garrett) played phenomenal and the guys made great plays,” Morris said.
The pass protection also held up despite the fact that San Diego was playing with its fourth starting center on the season, Zack Lamonda, allowing only two sacks.
Trailing by seven points early in the fourth quarter Fresno decided to go for broke on fourth and long, deep in its own territory with plenty of time left. The Riptide held and scored to extend its lead to 47-33. The defense and special teams dominated the rest of the way when two consecutive Ryan Geisler kickoffs bounced off the crossbar and into the laps of Riptide players, Jason Burk and Zack LaMonda respectively.
Burk’s return set up Garrett’s final touchdown on the night while on the ensuing kickoff Lamonda, playing in his first af2 game, had the second kickoff bounce right into his hands off the net and rumbled, stumbled and ran over hapless Fresno tacklers for San Diego’s tenth and final touchdown.
“Geisler kicked it off perfectly. It bounced off the lower yellow crossbar. I’ve been playing offensive line all my life so I kind of froze when I saw it hop. I caught it and first thing I tried to do was dive for the end zone. Thank God I’m so large because my momentum carried me in,“ LaMonda said.
While the offense and special teams clicked, the defense continued its season-long improvement as Rico Curtis and Ryan Cuthbert continue to emerge as dominating players. Curtis posted 9.5 tackles giving him a total of 104.5 and only 12.5 tackles shy of the league record in 2000. He leads the af2 in tackles. Cuthbert leads the team in sacks with 8.5 despite playing in only 10 of the 13 games.
OL/DL Trevor Misipeka also got into the scoring act barreling in from a yard-out in the first quarter. For longtime football fans, the play was reminiscient of William “Fridge” Perry’s touchdown runs with the Chicago Bears in the 80’s.
“We wanted to give him the ball at the goal-line. He loved it. We’ve been practicing it,” Morris said.
The Riptide go to Wichita this Saturday to clinch a playoff spot and are also still in position to win the Western division title if Bakersfield falters during the final four games.
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.
