The Force is too strong for Mustangs
Jeff Sawatzke
Monday April 25, 2011
Slow out of the gate seems to be the norm for the Milwaukee Mustangs (1-5). The slow start allowed the Georgia Force (4-2) too big of a lead to overcome. Despite another late game rally by the Mustangs the Force held on to win by a score of 57-48 in front of the largest crowd for a home Mustangs game this year.
Starting the game without two key receivers, Antoine Burns and Dwayne Eley Jr., made this a much harder battle for Milwaukee. Missing these two offensive weapons put that much more pressure on rookie quarterback R.J Archer. Brent Holmes was back in the game returning from a knee injury. Holmes made only three catches for 25 yards and dropped a few passes that he should have made.
“Bouncing back from a knee injury is tough.” Archer said of Burns, “I could have put some of the passes in a better spot for him. He is a great receiver he’ll be fine.”
Stepping up to help the receiving corps was fullback Mykel Benson who had a stellar game. Benson had three receptions for 76 yards and two touchdowns. He also had six rushes to add another 20 yards. “We have to make plays from the beginning,” Benson said regarding the slow start. “We can’t start slow like we’ve been doing. “
Penalties were a big part of this game on both sides of the ball. It seemed that whenever the Mustangs got things going they were called back for something. The Mustangs were called for 15 penalties for a total of 121 yards.
Maurice Purify led the seemingly unstoppable Force receiving corps with six receptions for 105 yards and three touchdowns. Larry Shipp added another six receptions for 47 yards and two touchdowns for Georgia. CJ Johnson ended the day with five receptions for 75 yards and one touchdown for the Force.
In the third quarter the Mustangs had two brilliant plays that brought the crowd back into the game, hoping to see another come from behind victory. The first was when Mustangs Brent Holmes recovered an onside kick at the 10 yard line. The second was a great interception returned the length of the field by Andre Jones. Not only were they great plays they narrowed the sizeable lead that Georgia had built up down to a much more manageable eleven points.
After the game you could sense coach Bob Landsee’s frustration with the slow starts. “I’d like to have a game where we come out and figure out how to start a game, how to finish a game.” Landsee said, “It’s just mind boggling how we do the things we do.”
Milwaukee had two key defensive injuries in the fourth quarter. “We lost two defensive linemen in the fourth quarter”, Coach Landsee stated,”Donny Phelps [knee] and Justin Brown [hamstring]. Brown is a franchise player. Two of our better defensive ends both get hurt and all of a sudden we are playing with a nose guard that is really our tight end and a tight end who is usually our fullback. It became a circus and they fought through it they did a pretty good job fighting through it; but when you give someone that kind of a lead [35-6] in early in the third quarter [it makes it difficult to come back].”
The Milwaukee Mustangs (1-5) take on the Tampa Bay Storm (2-4), on April 30th at 7:00pm in Milwaukee. The Storm is coming off a loss to the Dallas Vigilante. “We will be prepared for next week.” Coach Landsee said, “ Tampa comes to our house. They’ve got their issues going on with their team and we have to be prepared to take on Tampa right where we left off here.”
