Knights' Defense Stops Pioneers
Keith Murphy
Sunday June 19, 2005
The game turned late in the third quarter on a sequence of stellar defensive plays by the Knights. Following an incredible bit of kickoff coverage by WR/DB Damian Purse which pinned the Pioneers in the shadow of their own goal line; defensive player of the game Hosea Laney picked off Pioneer quarterback Brian Snyder on the next play for scrimmage and ran the ball in for an eight yard touchdown.
Laney said that Knights’ head coach Derek Stingley told the team it was time for a big play from the defense. "Coach said somebody’s gotta make a big play and he looked at me and he looked in my eyes and I looked in his eyes and I said, ‘I’m gonna make a big play.’ I got blessed. The Lord blessed me with the interception. I said, when I catch it, I’m gonna try to take it to the house. We took it upon ourselves to not let coach down and play hard the whole four quarters."
The Knights’ defense was the key, intercepting Snyder twice, sacking him twice, racking up three tackles for loss and five pass breakups. Stingley says that the big change was in the secondary, "I played a lot of man coverage for the first time this year. Normally I kind of switch it up. I do a lot of different things. But I primarily played man 95 percent of the time. I knew my guys could run with these guys and make their quarterback make a perfect throw. I knew their quarterback (Snyder) made good decisions and I wanted us to get pressure and make that quarterback know he had to make that perfect pass. My guys in the secondary did a great job."
The Macon offense was productive when it needed to be. Quarterback Lionel Hayes led the offense, completing 21 of 39 passes for 203 yards and three touchdowns. He was intercepted once. The Knights put together an effective ground game, picking up four rushing touchdowns, including two by FB/LB Tyrone Myers. On the other side of the ledger, Brian Snyder led the Pioneer offense, completing just 18 of 32 passes for 217 yards and five touchdowns. He was intercepted twice.
With the win, Macon keeps their hopes of sneaking into the last playoff berth in the American conference. This win, Stingley says is also an important win psychologically. "That was a good team we just beat and I’m hoping that with that win the league will recognize that we are a good team. My guys, for their own sake, that gives them confidence to know that they can go out and play against good teams and come out victorious."
One downside to the game was the inordinate number of penalties called by the officials. Macon was hit with 12 penalties for 99 yards, Wilkes-Barre with 7 for 36 and those numbers don’t include the penalties that were offsetting or declined. After the game, Stingley waxed philosophic about the pile of yellow flags on the Coliseum turf: "They are human. I’m not saying that every call was the best call but, unfortunately we don’t have instant replay in this league. I can’t fault them. That’s just refs. That will happen."
With the win, the Knights run their record to 5 and 6. They will try to get back to the .500 mark as they travel to Naples Saturday to tackle to the Division leading Florida Firecats. The Knights’ next home game is July 23rd versus South Georgia. With the loss, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton falls to 6 and 5. They are spending the week in Georgia as they travel down Interstate 75 to Albany to take on the South Georgia Wildcats Saturday.
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
