Saturday, Jun. 20, 2009

Fever looks for shocking upset

By Ben Reynolds, Herald staff writer

What can you say about tonight's game against the Spokane Shock other than stranger things have happened.

The Tri-Cities Fever tries to slay Goliath tonight, taking on its rivals to the north, trying to end a six-game skid against the top-ranked Shock (10-0) in af2 play.

The Fever (1-10) is banged up, battered and bruised, looking for some positives as the season hits its final six weeks.

"I hate to keep saying it," said Fever coach Pat O'Hara, "but we have to execute on offense."

The Fever continues its best to stay at the bottom of the arenafootball2 league in scoring. Tri-Cities, which is averaging a league-worst 31.4 points per game, has scored more than 30 points just once in its last four games.

Things are not expected to get any easier or better against the Shock, which boasts the league's stingiest defense, allowing 36.8 points per game.

"We just have to worry about executing what we do," O'Hara said.

The Shock has won six straight games against the Fever, including two already this season.

Spokane beat Tri-Cities 61-20 less than a month ago at Toyota Center.

If that game showed anything, it showed the Fever could create some breaks on defense, forcing the Shock into two turnovers.

But, like most games all season, the Fever did not capitalize and burned itself with turnovers of its own and a slew of penalties.

The Fever turned the ball over five times and committed 14 penalties for a franchise-record 154 yards.

"We created some turnovers, we just couldn't keep up on offense," O'Hara said.

Quarterback Tomotsuna Inoue will make his third straight start, hoping to give the team some sort of consistency that it has lacked behind center all season.

He will have a couple of new receivers to throw to tonight as Tremayne Kirkland (hamstring) and Chris Hemphill (knee) will miss their third straight game.

Johnny Walker, who was activated from team suspension Thursday, will start alongside Finas Rabb. Also, newly signed Brandon Copeland is also expected to see extended time at receiver.

The Fever offensive line will be without Ta'ase Jennings, who is out because of knee injury. Peter St. John and Brandon Bennett will team up to fill that void.

On defense, defensive lineman Erics Clark has been put on the injured reserve list, and his status for the rest of the season is in doubt.

Despite numerous injuries, O'Hara and the Fever forge on.

"We have to go out and play hard, and see what happens," O'Hara said.

-- The Fever has lost nine straight road games and has never won in Spokane.

-- Colin Drafts is listed as Inoue's back-up tonight after Ryan Porter was released earlier this week. Porter was picked up by Tulsa.