Friday, Jun. 20, 2008

Fever still entertaining hopes of reaching postseason

By Ben Reynolds, Herald staff writer

The loss to Central Valley hurt. The loss to rival Spokane stung a little more.

But neither of the Tri-Cities Fever's last two losses has been the knockout blow to its playoff hopes.

They just made things more difficult -- a lot more difficult.

The Fever (4-7) sits in a tie for 11th in the National Conference standings with five games left in the regular season. However, the Fever is just one game in the loss column from the seventh spot.

The top eight teams from each conference make the playoffs.

Of the Fever's final five games, four are against teams ahead of it in the standings, starting with Arkansas (7-4) on Saturday night at Toyota Center.

The Fever then play at Boise (5-6) -- the teams have split their first two meetings this season -- then come home to play host to Amarillo (5-6) on July 14.

Tri-Cities closes out the season at Stockton (2-9) and at Central Valley (6-4).

To get one of those playoff spots, Fever coach Cedric Walker figures his team will need to win four of its last five games.

"Without a doubt," he said. "The big thing for us right now is to just get back on the winning track."

If the Fever -- which is trying to become the first team in af2 history to make the playoffs after starting the season 0-4 -- stumble more than that, it could still make the playoffs with a below-.500 record. However, league history is not on the Fever's side.

Only four teams in the nine-year history of the af2 have made the playoffs with a losing record. All of those teams were 7-9, and two of them (Oklahoma City and Alabama) were last season.

With 10 teams in the conference separated by just three games, the playoff picture figures to be muddled just like it was last year.

But it all worked out for the Fever last season. Despite losing its last three games, Tri-Cities, at 8-8, won a tiebreaker with Boise to get the eighth playoff spot.

"The next three weeks are huge," Walker said. "These games are absolutely immense."

-- Fever receiver J.R. Thomas moved into third on the af2 all-time receiving yards list with his five-catch, 49-yard effort in Saturday's loss to Spokane. In his five-year af2 career, Thomas has amassed 6,219 yards and is less than 400 away from George Williams, who is second at 6,588 yards.

-- The 5,174 fans who attended the Fever game last Saturday was the largest attendance of the season, and the biggest home crowd since last year's 39-34 victory over the Shock on June 16, 2007. It was also just the third time in team history it eclipsed the 5,000 mark in attendance.

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