Knights Done In By Sloppy Play...Again
Keith Murphy
Saturday April 30, 2005
Manchester took a 26–10 lead into the half and cruised to an easy win. Manchester head coach Bob Bennett said that you never expect to dominate another team like this.
"You never expect to dominate anybody in arena football," Bennett said. "We just made a few more plays than they did today. We were still a little bit sloppy at times, but we’re getting there. A little bit at a time."
Macon head coach Mike Hold says that his team should blame itself for the loss.
"I don’t want to give any disrespect to Manchester because a lot of what happened was due to their play but I just think we shot ourselves in the foot way too many times," Hold said. "That fumble in the beginning was huge. There’s a fourteen-point swing right at the end of half. We’ve got a guy wide open and we’ve got to make that play. Then we come back out and got the ball on the goal line and we just gave them the ball right back when we should have gotten points out of it. There’s fourteen points right there. Offensively we had everything we wanted all night long. Until we see the film it’s hard to point fingers but the bottom line is that this is a team game and everybody’s got to be doing their job and if they’re not you’re not going to be successful. It’s frustrating because we are a talented team and we’re not playing like it. I don’t know what’s changed in the last two weeks but we, as coaches are going to take it upon ourselves to figure it out.
It’s embarrassing. It’s disgusting to have two performances like this back to back. We can’t be saying this six weeks from now; we’ve got to take care of this problem now."
Bennett says that there is only one way for Macon to get out of the rut it finds itself in, "They’ve just got to keep playing hard. There’s really no magic pill for that. Guys have just got to work hard and
concentrate on taking care of the ball."
Manchester’s offense was led by quarterback Jake Eaton who completed 19 of 26 passes for 204 yards, four touchdowns and only one interception. Jamaal Perry caught eight of those passes for 109 yards and one score. William Haith led the Wolves defense with 13 tackles and three pass break-ups.
Macon’s offense was led by quarterback Lionel Hayes who was 28 of 41 for 287 yards and three touchdowns. He also threw two interceptions. Chris Johnson caught 13 passes for 149 yards and a score. Anthony Collins caught 7 passes, three of which were touchdowns. Hosea Laney led the defense with 8 tackles, including one tackle for a loss, and an interception.
With the win, Mohegan goes to 3-1 on the season. The Wolves host Louisville on May 6th. With the loss, Macon falls to 2-3. The Knights host Albany May 7th.
Dr. Murphy has nearly 20 years of media experience ranging from radio to the Internet. He has served as webmaster for two AF2 teams and the football team at Fort Valley State University. He is a professor at FVSU and directs www.bunniwerks.org, a non-profit rabbit rescue organization. He has been commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel. Murphy is also serving as a first party editor of af2 stories for ArenaFfan. For more information about Dr. Murphy see: www.keithmurphy.info