Fans are calling this series "The Battle of I-75." Dayton and Cincinnati are just 50 minutes away. The Dayton Warbirds started their season in the United Indoor Football League. They got kicked out of that league because of bad ownership, sold the team and are now in our league under different ownership. The league offices changed everyone's schedule and now we play Dayton 3 times this season.
Before the game, I was looking at Dayton's roster and they got some pretty big names and a bunch of guys that have played Arena football before. The two biggest names were former Ohio State players, QB Steve Bellisari and RB Pepe Pearson, who were both with NFL teams. Their record coming into the game was 2-1. The two teams that they beat were winless with a combined record of I think 0-9. The team they lost to was the Beaumont Drillers who we beat last week.
Anyway, lets get to the game. This was a flat out shootout. We got the ball first and on our 3rd play of the game I threw a TD pass to Jeff Jourdan, which was his first TD catch this season. Jeff and I played together at Hanover College. On this team he is in a weird position where he is the only guy not in motion on most plays, which makes it hard to get him the ball sometimes.
(I'm going to do something new this week and include some reporting from nationalindoorfootballleague.net)
"Former Hanover College standout and Marshals wide receiver Jeff Jourdan opened the scoring with a 27 yard reception from college teammate Brett Dietz to score his first professional touchdown.
"It was an exciting night," said Jourdan. "This is what I've been waiting and working for all season and to get it in front of my family and home fans feels great! I hope it's the first of many more to come."
The first few possessions for both teams belonged to the offense as neither defense started out too hot. Then Askew fumbled on the kickoff giving Dayton the first advantage of the game and got the ball inside the 10-yard line. Dayton scored on that possession. Then a trade of TDs before our offense went 3 and out and a missed FG. Dayton couldn't be stopped and had a 35-22 lead in the early part of the 2nd quarter.
We would battle back with each team scoring a TD on every drive for the rest of the 2rd Quarter. (That seems weird but that is how indoor football goes.) However, we would get the last laugh in the 2nd Quarter after I threw a TD pass to Tobias Deans with just seconds remaining. That made the halftime score 50-43. Yes, that was just the halftime score.
Needless to say, our defense really stepped it up in the 2nd half. I'm not sure if they stopped them once in the first half but they were huge in the 3rd quarter. After an opening drive that resulted in a FG for Dayton, our defense then got a turnover on downs, recorded a safety, and then got an interception on consecutive drives. Then our offense scored on the first possession of the 4th quarter to give us a 59-53 lead.
Dayton's offense kicked it in again scoring and making it 60-59. After a long pass to Tobias Deans, and a few rushes by Askew, I QB sneaked one in and converted the 2 point pass to Askew to put the Marshals back on top 67-60.
Dayton responds on 2 plays for an 18 yard TD reception. 67-67.
Then a great catch by Johnell Wyatte on the squib kickoff and he returns it into Dayton territory and 3 rushes later Cincy on top 73-67. (We missed the extra point because of a bad snap. We had some injuries to our normal long snapper, so it was me who was in snapping and it was a little high.)
Dayton responds making it 74-73.
Now its time for our second come from behind winning Touchdown drive. I'll let nationalindoorfootballleague.net reporter to take it from here...
"With the Warbirds taking a 74-73 lead with 1:21 remaining in the game, Cincinnati got a 41-yard kickoff return from Ernie Samuels to set up the winning score.
The Marshals, behind Dietz took only three plays and the former Hanover College standout passed 8 yards to Askew with 55 seconds left to give Cincinnati a 79-74 lead. Dietz then connected with Jeff Jordan for a two-point conversion and the Marshals held an 81-74 margin.
On the ensuing kickoff by Jesse Obert, Dayton took over on its own 5-yard line with 50 seconds left. Warbirds' quarterback Steve Bellisari connected with Maurice Lee for 13 yards and then went 0-for-3 before his fourth-down pass was intercepted by Hamben at the Dayton 9-yard line.
Hamben, collecting his second interception of the game, took a 5-yard loss in running the clock down to 10 seconds. Dietz then downed the ball to run the remaining seconds off the clock to give the Marshals their 3rd straight win."
One thing that clip didn't tell was how our fans helped us win the game. On Dayton's last drive, our crowd was so loud that the Dayton center couldn't here Bellasari's snap count, so Dayton had to take 3 straight 5 yard offsides penalties. That made pushed Dayton way back and had 1st and 25, so they were forced to go deep. That also forced Bellasari to go underneath center instead of his normal shotgun for the last drive. We had some great defensive plays on that last drive that prevented Dayton from scoring their final TD, but it was with the huge help of the crowd that we won this game!!!
We play New Jersey next, this Saturday at home, before we go on a road trip. New Jersey is 0-5, but we still need to play hard in order to win.
Also congrats to Rayshawn Askew who now has 106 career touchdowns and is the first player in NIFL history to go over 100 career touchdowns.
But again thanks for the fan support, especially on that last Dayton drive!!!
Receiving:
Tobias Deans: 7 rec 107 yds. 2 TDs
Rayshawn Askew: 4 rec 27 yds. 3 TDs
Jeff Jourdan: 2 rec 39 yds. 1 TD
Dan Fry: 2 rec 12 yds.
Ernie Samuels: 1 rec. 7 yds.