Rattlers hold off Bay Area Panthers to forge tie for 1st in IFL Western Conference
After giving up too many easy scores, the Rattlers found a way to make a stop in the end to hold on to beat the Bay Area Panthers 70-63 before 10,029 fans Sunday at Footprint Center.
It was a statement win.
The Rattlers avenged the early-season, one-point loss to Bay Area, a game in which quarterback Drew Powell got hurt, causing him to miss the next six weeks.
Powell showed he's back in a big way, rushing for five touchdowns and passing for four more, despite losing star receiver Braxton Haley early in the game with a lower-body injury.
This was the fourth pay-back win for the Rattlers (7-4), who are now tied for first in the Indoor Football League Western Conference with the Panthers (7-4), who came up 10 yards short of a touchdown in the end.
Former Phoenix Horizon High quarterback Dalton Sneed, who threw five TD passes, had his final pass slip through the fingers of J.T. Stokes on fourth-and-7 with 33 seconds left. Powell could take a knee and the game was over.
"The win was tight, but we did what we needed to do," said linebacker Cecil Cherry, who forced a fumble and recovered it and recovered an onside kick and scored in a wild second quarter, during which the teams combined to score 10 touchdowns. "Defense stepped up when defense needed to step up. That's what defense do, win championships.
"And this was our statement. If we want to win everything, they've got to come through the desert. And it's not going to be easy. We still got mistakes we need to improve on. I do. Everybody does. But I like our team. Our unity comes together."
This was a tough game for Cherry, who said in the postgame interview lost his aunt two days ago. He said he is playing the rest of the season for her, leaving everything on the field.
"I told my teammates, my brother, I'm playing for my auntie," Cherry said. "One thing about it, I'm going to leave it all on the field."
The team combined to score 70 points in the second quarter. The Rattlers scored 42 points in the quarter and only took a 42-35 lead at the break, after Aedan Johnson's 47-yard field goal try bounced off an upright as the half ended.
The Rattlers blew a 14-point lead in the final minute after the Panthers recovered an onside kick and quickly cashed it in. But after they tied the score at 35, the Rattlers bounced back with Powell finding Isaiah Huston with a long pass to the Bay Area 4, leading to Powell's 4-yard scoring run.
The Panthers were targeting Cherry on the onside kicks, three times kicking the ball at him. The first one he caught and returned it 10 yards for a score that gave the Rattlers a 35-21 lead with 52 seconds left in the half.'
Cherry tried to do the same thing the next time it was kicked to him, but he wasn't able to gather the ball on the run and the Panthers recovered. That led to a score that tied it at 35-35 with 25 seconds left in the half. The Rattlers tried their own onside kick in the final minutes, but it was a slow roller than the Panthers easily recovered, setting up a very short field to score.
"We got some stops early but as the game went on, it got faster and both teams were busting some defensive calls," coach Kevin Guy said. "The last two or three minutes (of the half) was the worst defense, and worst special teams I've seen in a three-minute period since I've been the head coach here. We'll address that. Just lack of execution, lack of being mentally locked in. But I was proud of our team, our offense. We didn't blink the whole second half. You look at the two kickers, and you're waiting for one of them to miss an extra point. And they never did. It was just a back-and-forth game. Defensively, for us, when we need to make a stop, we did."
Powell, who holds the Rattlers' all-time record with 87 rushing touchdowns, said the five TDs on the ground were the most he had in a game.
With Haley out, Jazeric Peterson did a great job. He caught five passes for 61 yards and two TDs, including a 35-yarder. Huston had five catches for 97 yards and a TD.
"Jazeric did a great job filling in," Powell said. "He was ready to play. He's always prepared and doing extra in practice. I was proud of how he came out and showed out. And the offensive line did a great job."
Powell had scoring runs of 9 and 2 yards in the final 8:35 to keep the Rattlers in front as the Panthers kept putting the heat on him with touchdowns.
"We just started to execute," Guy said. "Both teams are well-coached. They got a lot of players in the offseason in free agency. We kind of built ours as the season went on with injuries. Everybody's making moves."
The Rattlers have four games left, at Duke City next week and two more at home against San Diego on June 23 and Massachusetts July 2, before getting a bye, then playing host to Northern Arizona on July 15.
To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert atrichard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on Twitter@azc_obert
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rattlers hold off Bay Area Panthers to forge tie for 1st in IFL West
