Soul get win #4, dominate Gladiators 63-48
Harrison Brown
Wednesday April 22, 2015
PHILADELPHIA - Fans in the City Of Brotherly Love haven’t had the easiest of times so far in 2015. The Eagles went 10-6 but still fell short of the playoffs, and in the offseason the team lost Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy, and Nick Foles. The 76ers did their annual tank show this season going 18-64 with a .220 winning percentage, while trading away reigning rookie of the year Michael Carter-Williams. The Flyers were awarded the 7th pick in the NHL lottery draft tonight, and fired head coach Craig Berube last night, and the Phillies have no one to get excited about this season on the roster. The only team in the sports complex on Broad Street that seem to have any real hopes at a championship in 2015 are the Philadelphia Soul who currently stand at 4-0 after beating the Cleveland Gladiators 63-48 , the defending American Conference Champs.
Quarterback Dan Raudabaugh had another tremendous night for the Soul throwing for 262 yards and seven touchdowns. Raudabaugh continued to display his tremendous accuracy and touch on the ball in the redzone. “Seven touchdowns? It was okay.” Clint Dolezel joked when Dan walked into the press conference. “Dan’s always been good, but he’s put his heart and soul into into it this year, he came into camp in great shape and he’s done the little things on and off the field. If he keeps playing like this we are going to be tough to beat.”
The Soul scored on every possession that they had the ball tonight and really shined in the second half. In the first half the Soul came out somewhat sloppy and didn’t seem to be the cohesive unit we have seen all season. “First half we didn’t play catch a lot, Dan looked a little erratic, and he just needed to be patient.” Coach Clint Dolezel said in the post game press conference.
In the Second half though the Soul looked just about as good as they ever have. Marco Thomas may have the Soul on Sportscenter’s Top 10 for a third week in a row after he had a great one handed grab with a Cleveland DB holding him. “He was just hanging on my back and I practice that catch all the time so I felt comfortable going for it.” Marco said in his first press conference as a Soul player.
When Coach Dolezel was asked about what he said at halftime to the team he admitted he didn’t give any inspirational speech. “Just settle down. We were so geeked up about winning this game and a lot of times that happens and you get over excited about things and you don’t play within yourselfs. We preach it all the time, we don’t need heros just eight guys doing their jobs.
The Soul also utilized their new kicker Tommy Frevert’s great onside kick ability tonight when Xavier Boyce recovered the deceptive kick. “It’s a surprise because he (Tommy Frevert) makes it look just like his kickoff, so it’s really hard for them to see it when he does it. Even if they do see it we still have the numbers so we are going to use that. We will use that every week, if it’s one, two, or three times a week.”
The Soul started Padric Scott instead of Caleb Bostic at defensive end in tonights game. This was Scott’s first start of the season. “It was just matchups, what we have and what they have. We thought his power and speed would be good against what they had going and he played well tonight, I’d still like a little more pressure than we had tonight but that will come.”
The Soul will travel to New Orleans next week to take on the Voodoo in a game that was rescheduled to the 26th. Nola only scored 13 points against a Tampa Bay defense that isn’t nearly as good as the Soul’s so the team will go in as the clear favorites. Plus if they can play in Spokane, they can certainly play in the not so noisy Smoothie King Center. “It feels good to be two games up on the Gladiators, next week we’ll be looking for three” Dan Raudabaugh said.