Fire Keep Division Championship Hopes Alive
Kevin Sedelmeier
Tuesday July 27, 2004
At 9-6, both teams are tied with the Peoria Pirates for the lead in the Midwest Division. The Pirates take on the Blizzard, the team that beat them by 28 points earlier in the season. Peoria, however, is a different team now, winning six games in a row including two against the Fire.
But the Fire can’t worry about that game. Instead, they have to win at Quad Cities. It’s that simple because if they lose, their playoff hopes are all but over. Linebacker/receiver Dennis Fryzel, who had a fumble recovery and a rushing two-point conversion in the Green Bay win, understands that very well. “We’re getting to the end of the season, and we know if we don’t win these two games, our season’s over,” he said.
The tone for the game was set on the opening kickoff when Takuya Furutani returned it for a touchdown. The diminutive sparkplug also added a receiving touchdown in the second half. Throw in three Tony Stallings TD runs and two Anthony Payton TD receptions, and Fire QB Matt Sauk, who spread the ball around well, and the offense scored often and early.
The defensive line played arguably their best game of the season, pressuring Green Bay QB Andy Sahm all night. Andrew Tippins, Nick Myers, Jason Ferguson, Demetrius Forney, and Derrick Shepard all roughed and chased Sahm relentlessly, but Sahm was a tough competitor and made the score of the game closer than it really was. But this isn’t the first time the Fire have had trouble putting teams away after jumping out early. For instance, Green Bay’s Chris Martin returned a missed field goal for a touchdown as time expired in the first half. That’s a nine-point swing. And while Martin made a nice play, that sort of return is an example of how the Fire has let leads slip away lately. Head Coach Tommy Johnson isn’t too worried, however. “You don’t have too many just absolute blowouts in arena football,” he said, before adding, “But you can never let your guard down.” The bottom line, though, is that the Fire held on to win.
An interesting note is that there seems to be a tendency to always go deep on fourth down instead of just getting the eight or ten yards that is needed for the first down. And late in the game with the Fire up 49-41, the call was for Sauk to throw on third down. It was a deflected pass that was nearly intercepted. With Tony Stallings in the backfield, this doesn’t make much sense. Demetrius Forney, another short yardage force, is there as well. Yes, the Fire couldn’t quite crack the goal line on the first two downs with both runners getting carries, but they should have stuck with it. Put Stallings in motion and give him the wide side of the field. Nobody runs harder. Passing in this situation was a questionable call. Another surprising call was not putting Fryzel in as receiver after offensive specialist James Scott was ejected for some fisticuffs with Martin.
The players, though, may disagree with a critique of the decision making. Stallings says, “If they (the coaches) keep calling a great game and we do what they say, we should come out winners. The coaches are doing great.”
With Mike Tyson set to brawl, I mean fight, in Freedom Hall this Friday; I suppose I could make some segue to how the Fire must learn how to finish, to knock out opposing teams, how when they let them linger too long, it opens the door for a close game. But I’ll avoid such pugilism metaphors. Instead, a win is a win. And as the Fire prepare for Quad Cities, they know they control their destiny in Moline. That means they will play hard like they have all season. And they won’t even have to bite off anybody’s ear, either, to prove that.
Smoke signals
Those wacky promotions … throwing cup huggers in the stands is not a great idea. They don’t fly well. Nolan Ryan couldn’t even throw one ten rows up in the stands.
WB/DB Tony Stallings did very well for himself on the season premiere of King of the Jungle 2. He blew away the competition in the first event, pulling a sled equal to his body weight in a race across jungle terrain. Stallings seems to have this reality show thing down pat. “You don’t want to look good all the time. You’ve got to pick and choose the ones you’re going to win,” said Stallings “The only time you want to win is when you know you’re going to win to get immunity.” Having run over his share of would-be-tacklers, Stallings was accurate in his confidence for the first event. More importantly, as first reigning king who lead a group discussion, he gained the respect of his peers with his personality as much as he did with his athleticism. The second event had the contestants posing on one leg like a flamingo on a stump in a pond. While he didn’t win that event, he was one of the last few standing. “I kind of wanted to win that one. I started cramping up from my toe all the way up to my hip, and that was it,” said Stallings with a laugh. For me, I will always recall watching a repeat of the season premiere at midnight in the lobby of Indiana Beach’s Beach House trying to get my toddler, who refused to sleep in his room, back to bed. It made a long, tiring night a little better.
In the Green Bay game, Stallings also had a leaping, acrobatic interception, his first of the season. Oddly enough, he thought about picking one off before the game. “I was talking wife my wife, and I said the only thing I haven’t done this season is get an interception … and I got one tonight.”
During the game, a girl was hit on the head by a Matt Sauk bomb that sailed out of bounds. The girl was sitting close to the field and wasn’t looking in the direction of the oncoming ball. After being down for what seemed like ten minutes or so, she finally got up with the help of others. I hope she is doing fine. It was scary and unfortunate, and it didn’t look like many people even realized it happened.
That crazy Mascot Race. This week Axe, raced Toys “R Us’ Geoffrey, the Chic-Fila-A cow, The Louisville Bats’ popular Buddy Bat, and, perhaps McGruff the Crime Dog? I’m not positive who it was, but it sure looked like the police’s favorite canine except he was wearing overalls and not an overcoat. Are his crime fighting days over? Has he become a farmer? If it wasn’t McGruff, maybe it was beloved friend of the Wiggles and longtime companion to Captain Feathersword, that precocious Wags the Dog.
Halftime showcased a touch football game between Wave 3 TV and radio station 100.5 The Fox. In other words, that means a longtime respected television news station went up against a red neck hard rock station. So, at first glance, one might think the hip kids at the Fox would have the upper hand on the stately news people. Not so. The game ended with a 7-7 tie. The star of the game had to be WAVE’s anchorman Scott Reynolds. He was tenacious. The lefty, resembling a scrappy Jim Zorn circa 1979, showed off a surprisingly strong arm and even did some scrambling that would have made Fran Tarkenton proud. No kidding. He even made a big time pass deflection on defense. The whole time, however, in true anchorman form, his hair did not move.
When Green Bay’s Robert Garth fell over the end zone wall, it reminded me that the hockey rink like wall we have around the end zones really isn’t safe, and should be changed next season. I don’t know if these are even permissible in the AFL. It takes away some valuable end zone real estate. The cheerleaders would also probably like the wall to come down. They have to come on and off the field by jumping over the wall like some shirtless guy hopping a chain fence while running from the police on COPS.
The Fire finished their home schedule third in the league in attendance behind Arkansas and Oklahoma City. Louisville has been in the top three in attendance each of their four seasons.
Kevin Sedelmeier is a native Louisvillian. A graduate of the University of Louisville with a B.A. in Communication and M.A. in English, he works as a technical writer and has written fifteen screenplays and numerous short
stories. He lives with his wife Elizabeth, son Lukas, and their dog Springsteen.