By Jane Kathleen Gregorio
EBC Texas Bureau
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Eagle News) — After rising to the top rank of the Alliance of American Football Western Conference, the San Antonio Commanders were dominated by the Arizona Hotshots in week 8 with Arizona winning 23-6, payback for their loss to San Antonio in Week 5 at Sun Devil Stadium. Both teams are tied for top of the West with five wins and three losses each.
The first half started with strong defense from San Antonio but Commanders head coach Mike Riley blamed missed chances for big plays and penalties for the upset.
“[Arizona] hit their big play early, got a jump on it and a lead. We just missed the big play early and then we turned the ball over. That made all the difference in the world,” Riley said.
In the first half of the game, the Hotshots scored with a Rashad Ross touchdown to take a 6-0 first quarter lead. In the second quarter, the Hotshots made a field goal and led 9-0 mid-quarter, followed by one more touchdown from Hotshots Tim Cook, bringing the score to 15-0. At 47 seconds before halftime, Nick Rose scored a field goal for the Commanders, closing the first half at 15-3.
Midway in the third quarter, Commanders Nick Rose scored another field goal, bringing the score to 15-6. In the fourth quarter, Tim Cook scored a 20-yard touchdown for the Hotshots, pushing their lead to 21-6. At the end of the fourth, Wolford sealed the victory for the Hotshots with another touchdown, defeating the Commanders on their home turf with a final score of 23-6.
Hotshots Coach Rick Neuheisel said their home loss to San Antonio earlier this season spurred Arizona to fight harder in this game.
“There are stages that you go through when you’re dealing with adversity. The first stage is you’re in shock. Second, you start rationalizing where somebody else didn’t do it right and so forth; and then you go into a cocoon where you don’t want the pain because, when you really laid it out on the line, it’s excruciating when you’re unsuccessful. All [we] can do is dig out. And that’s what we did. We dug out, played cleaner. As some of the greatest coaches have said for years, ‘just take care of the football and you’ll have a chance to be successful,’” Neuheisel said.
Though the Alamo City may have suffered a loss this game, they remained positive.
“We had some decent drives and good plays. Marquise Williams gave us a good spark. We played a lot of good football today. I don’t think the score is an indicator of what [was done] on the field. I told them we just made it harder. It’s just going to be absolutely a question of response, and how we respond to it, and I think these guys will do a good job,” Riley said.
Despite a San Antonio Spurs home game happening at the same time, the Commanders game still drew an attendance of 23,504 — the fourth largest for any home game at the Alamodome and higher than any other team in the Alliance this season. As a testament to the city of San Antonio’s hunger to host a football team, the average number of attendees for the past home games was 27,720 while the average for the other 28 games throughout the league was 13,524 attendees.
-AAF suspends operations-
Shortly after the Hotshots and Commanders game, the AAF announced that it would suspend further operations after Chairman Tom Dundon’s decision to shut down the league.
The Commanders released a statement expressing their disappointment with the decision of the board while acknowledging how the AAF was a quality football product that fans nationwide could follow on TV or online each game day. They had hoped to successfully complete this first season.
“We are grateful to our players, coaches, staff, corporate partners, and especially our fans that supported us from the moment our team was announced through the record-setting attendance — San Antonio proved to be the best fans in The Alliance time and time again,” the team said in a statement released on April 2. “Thank you for your support and for believing in us.”
(Eagle News Service)
