Raging Rivals

Vegas ousts Arizona, take over sole possession of 1st place while tempers flare

Star Wars Knight featuring a heated rivalry game between the Vegas Knight Hawks and the Arizona Rattlers may have left both fanbases craving more while it left both teams with plenty to play for the next time out.

Vegas got the better of Arizona, 56-42, Sunday, May 3 from Lee’s Family Forum in a game that featured the last two national champions in the Indoor Football League. To make matters even more interesting, the Week 8 matchup would decide who took over sole possession of first place in the Western Conference.

“We expected this,” defensive lineman Lorenzo Hernandez said. “We all know that we’re the best team when we play to that level. Today, we didn’t even play to that level and we still put on a show for the fans.”

Hernandez conducted his postgame media obligations with his championship ring from last year’s title run.

That concludes back-to-back home games for the Knight Hawks as they ran their win streak to five straight games. As a result, the team’s overall record is 5-1 while it sits atop the West.

Another bye week lies ahead for Vegas before it participates in the league’s inaugural IFL Cup set to be played at American Dream in New Jersey. It will be a contest against Orlando Monday, May 8 at 7 p.m. to determine who advances to the title game while the loser is subjected to the consolation contest.

On the other side of that four-team bracket sits Arizona. Wins or losses by both teams can set up another meeting in three weeks.

“Arizona’s a great team,” Hernandez said. “We always have a good game with them but I think we run the IFL now.”

Time may be needed between matchups between these rivals after this meeting featured an intense altercation that included at least three separate shoving matches. In the midst of the dust-ups, there were two ejections including the Knight Hawks’ Aaron Faumui whereas Rattlers’ head coach Kevin Guy had his field privileges revoked while being relegated to coach from inside the box.

There were even direct confrontations between Davis and Guy.

“You take it back to last year when he was a sore loser when he lost against San Diego,” Davis said. “Then he wanted to chirp because we won the championship and now he wants to chirp again. At the end of the day, our guys don’t care – we want to win football games. If he wants to continue to chirp, he can chirp.”

During Davis’ postgame media scrum, Guy walked past and alluded to waiting outside for the Knight Hawks’ lead man following his media obligations. At the time of this writing, nothing more came from the two’s interactions.

“Just like he said he would go to bat for us, I’ll go to bat for Mike,” Hernandez said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to keep our cool, keep our composure. But we’re not going to let somebody come into our house and bully us.”

When playing football, neither team built a lead larger than one possession during the first half with the home team taking a, 28-21, lead into halftime. Vegas built the game’s first two-possession lead coming out of the break when it went up, 35-21, on Arizona.

“[Scoring on every drive] is the expectation,” Tomas said. “We should score every drive without a doubt. I don’t really think there’s a defense in the league that can stop us. We beat ourselves up a lot throughout the game periodically but we came through.”

Running back Josh Tomas’ second rushing touchdown of the night gave the Knight Hawks that two score lead. Soon thereafter, he’d add a kick return touchdown to his credit to once again run the lead to 14 points.

Tomas has scored a touchdown in each of the first six games this season for Vegas. He’s up to nine total touchdowns through the first eight weeks of the season.

“I’m definitely happy,” he said. “A win is a win at the end of the day. I just have higher expectations for all of us as a team. It’s just certain situations we should execute on and we’re just not executing in all phases of the game.”

Vegas’ final scoring drive was capped by a rushing touchdown by Deshon Stoudemire, who scored two times in the win. In total, Vegas scored five times on the ground including two times by quarterback Jayden De Laura.

At one point of the second half, Davis pulled De Laura to the side after an excessive celebration that drew a penalty flag after a touchdown.

“At the end of the day, they’re pros,” Davis said. “They do what they need to do. It was just like, ‘Hey you got an unsportsmanlike [penalty], you can’t do something crazy.’ That’s all it was.”

The Rattlers scored on their first possession of the game but the Knight Hawks defense would have to pick its spots to be successful against a high-potent offense. Arizona nearly scored on its next possession before a penalty wiped away the chance.

That drive would end with a missed field goal while the first half ended with a blocked field goal by the home team.

Vegas had to take its chances when it could, including forcing a turnover on downs after a successful onside kick by Arizona. A successful onside kick that Davis was ready for as he watched with his headset on.

“We kind of know what he does and how he operates,” Davis said. “When you prepare for it and you fail, it’s disappointing but our guys rebounded and regrouped.”

Even with that, Arizona had another turnover on downs late in regulation with what appeared to be a missed defensive pass interference call on fourth down. Had the penalty been called, the Rattlers would’ve been given a new set of downs while down by a touchdown.

The next time the defense was out, defensive back Clifton Duck intercepted quarterback Max Meylor, who won league MVP last season for the Green Bay Blizzards that Vegas beat in the IFL National Championship game.

“We know they have a lot of good players over there,” Hernandez said. “Especially Max Meylor and Kymani Clarke [...] But at the end of the day, they couldn’t beat us last year so going to a different team, they weren’t going to beat us this year plain and simple.”