Wednesday, May. 14, 2008

Revamped Fever ready for rematch with Shock

By Ben Reynolds, Herald staff writer

Twenty-three penalties.

Seven turnovers.

Four ejections.

And one touchdown that was taken off the scoreboard because of a bad call by an official that changed the momentum of the game.

And that was just the first of three installments this season between the Tri-Cities Fever and the Spokane Shock. What will the two West Division rivals do for an encore? You'll find out Saturday night when the two teams meet in Spokane.

"Fans are going to get their money's worth," said Fever coach Cedric Walker.

It didn't take long for Fever players to start thinking about Saturday's game. Actually, it was about five minutes after pulling out a 48-44 victory over Bossier-Shreveport last Saturday night.

"Now we need to go into Spokane and beat those guys down," said Fever defensive back Charles Ealy.

"It's a rivalry game and there is a lot of trash talking," Walker said.

Since the Shock's 55-51 victory over the Fever at Toyota Center on April 13, Spokane has continued to be one of the best teams in the af2, while the Fever hit rock bottom before quarterback Josh Kellett brought a sense of hope to Tri-Cities two weeks ago.

The Shock (6-0), ranked second in the af2 coaches poll, squeaked out a pair of two-point victories over Central Valley and Lubbock before pulling away late last week to beat Boise by 20.

Despite the fast start, Shock coach Adam Shackleford said his team has a long ways to go.

"We're a young team, and we're just fortunate we're learning while winning football games," he said.

The Fever, after losing to the Shock, suffered a pair of losses by 40-plus points at the hands of Boise and Peoria to fall to 0-4. Then Kellett took over and the Fever (2-4) has some newfound confidence after winning two straight games in the final seconds.

"We're a completely different team," Walker said. "We're going up there with the us against the world mentality."

Notes

The Fever has committed 68 penalties for 494 yards in six games -- both numbers rank second-to-last in the af2. Tri-Cities is on pace for 181 penalties for 1,317 yards over the 16-game season.

But lofty penalties numbers are nothing new to the Fever.

Last season, Tri-Cities was the most penalized team in the league, racking up 186 flags -- second-most in league history for a season -- for 1,228 yards -- seventh-most in league history.

Saturday night's attendance of 3,957 was the second lowest figure since the Fever joined the af2 at the start of the 2007 season. The smallest gate for the Fever was April 30 (3,415) of last season in a 48-39 win over Walker's Everett Hawks team.

Former Fever defensive back Ruschard Dodd-Masters had two tackles in his debut for the Stockton Lightning on Saturday in a 58-45 loss to Central Valley. ... Shannon Davis, another former Fever DB, led the team with seven tackles. ... LaRue Burley, who was traded a couple of weeks ago, ran a kickoff back 56 yards for a touchdown and had two more rushing TDs for the Arkansas Twisters in their 68-25 win over Oklahoma City on Saturday night. ... Jamie Hattley, who was traded to Arkansas after Week 1, had his first interception of the season in Twisters' win.