EVERETT – With the league’s No. 1 scoring offense going head-to-head against the No. 1 scoring defense, the only downside to this intriguing contest is that it’s taking place 3,000 miles away.
The high-flying and unbeaten Everett Hawks put their 7-0 record very much on the line today in Florida when they take on the Daytona Beach Hawgs in a National Indoor Football League game. Kickoff at the Ocean Center is scheduled for 4:05 p.m. (PDT).
Defense-minded Daytona Beach (6-2) gives up a league-low 28 points per game and is in first place in the South Division of the Atlantic Conference. Everett averages 63 points per game to lead the league.
But, wait. It gets juicier.
Everett is ranked No. 1 in the NIFL in passing offense and Daytona Beach is No. 1 in passing defense. The Hawks are No. 2 in total offense while the Hawgs are, you guessed it, No. 2 in total defense.
Obviously, something’s got to give when east meets west.
“I like the matchups, but I think they favor us,” Everett quarterback Albert Higgs said. “They seem pretty solid on both ends. They play a lot of man-to-man defense and we’ve got receivers who can get loose and cause problems for a secondary.”
Higgs, of course, is the primary catalyst for Everett. He leads the league in passing yards (1,540) as well as touchdown passes (36).
Daytona Beach counters with a slightly more balanced attack. Quarterback Oscar Davenport has been effective with 1,093 yards passing and 22 TD tosses. Workhorse running back Brad Lee is second in the league with 525 yards rushing on 153 carries. All 18 of his TDs have come on the ground.
“Their offense is more 50-50 running and passing,” Higgs said. “We’re more like 70-30. We throw the ball a lot, but then we hit them with two very good running backs (Verna Owens and Anthony Simmons) who get the job done too.”
The shifty Owens has darted for 318 yards on 69 carries and has 13 rushing TDs.
Hawgs defensive end John Bowman leads the league in tackles for a loss (13), sacks (nine) and fumbles forced (four).
The Hawgs, who are 5-0 at home, are coming off of an emotional two weeks involving their closest division rivals, the Miami Morays.
On May 1 Daytona Beach suffered a heartbreaking 58-53 setback at Miami when the Morays scored the winning touchdown with 10 seconds remaining. At home for a rematch on last Sunday, the Hawgs squared matters by scoring three late TDs to secure a 53-37 victory.
For Everett, today’s matchup marks the first stop in what appears to be the most brutal stretch of the 14-game regular season.
The Hawks play four of their next six games against Daytona Beach and Miami (5-2). Among Atlantic Conference teams only River City (6-1) has a better record than the Hawgs and Morays.
Everett’s most recent outing, a 66-26 thrashing of the Lincoln Capitols at the Everett Events Center on May 6, was a nice sendoff for what lies ahead.
“We had talked about playing all four quarters and I think we finally did that (against Lincoln),” Everett coach Dan Maciejczak said. “And we’ve shown that we can play well on the road too.”
But, can Everett play well enough to continue its quest to become just the second team in the NIFL’s five-year history to go unbeaten?
“7-0 looks good,” Higgs said of Everett’s bid to match the 17-0 record put up by the Ohio Valley Greyhounds in 2003. “But, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Noteworthy
Injury update: Hawks wide receiver Jason Quinn will miss his second straight game with bursa sac swelling in his left knee. In six games Quinn has 36 receptions for 366 yards and 10 touchdowns. Also out are Defensive backs Jamley Austin (thumb) and DB Lenny Hayes (broken bone in left leg).
Hawks avoid lockout: The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported Friday that the Daytona Beach Hawgs have fulfilled a $24,000 financial obligation to the Ocean Center, which will allow tonight’s game to be played as scheduled. The newspaper reported the Ocean Center had closed down ticket sales and locked the Hawgs out on Monday after receiving bad checks from the team. On Thursday, team owner Anthony Pewonski gave Ocean Center officials a cashiers check for $24,000 and the team was re-admitted to the facility. Pewonksi is majority owner of two other NIFL teams in Kissimmee, Fla., and Dayton, Ohio. He is also a partner in the Lakeland, Fla., franchise. Pewonksi is talking with several Daytona Beach business owners who want to buy the Daytona Beach team, the newspaper reported.
By Scott M. Johnson
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – The starting pitching of the Seattle Mariners has been consistent in its inferiority this week, and yet Friday night gave reason for hope.
Hope that the Mariners’ scrawny-armed offense can look like an 800-pound Gorilla every night, thereby rendering it a moot point how anyone pitches.
Playing in front of a crowd that featured plenty of fans rooting for the visiting team, the Mariners actually showed more offense than the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox. Seattle piled up a season-high 15 hits, including eight that went for extra bases, and overmatched the best lineup in baseball Friday, beating the Red Sox 14-7 to end a three-game skid.
“Good things are contagious, just like bad things are contagious,” Mariners designated hitter Raul Ibanez said. “Hopefully this will carry over. It’s good to see us get hits collectively.”
While starter Joel Pineiro added to the woes of a struggling rotation, Seattle’s bats lit up the scoreboard so often that Ray Allen temporarily became this city’s second-most dangerous offensive weapon.
After Adrian Beltre’s three-run homer in the fourth inning gave Seattle an 8-6 lead, the Mariners continued to pile it on. They had five extra-base hits over the next two innings to circumvent any possibility of Boston’s high-octane offense sparking a comeback.
Over the past two games, Seattle has tallied 29 hits and 23 runs off the American League’s premier teams – Boston and the New York Yankees.
That’s the bright side. The bad news is that the Mariners’ starting pitchers have combined for just six innings of work in those two games, allowing 18 hits and 11 runs. Ryan Franklin’s 6-4 win over the Red Sox last Sunday remains the only victory from a member of Seattle’s starting rotation in the past 12 games.
Unless the Mariners’ offense can put up 15 hits every night, recent accomplishments are not a safe recipe for winning baseball.
For one night at least, it worked. Seattle had four doubles, including three in the fifth inning alone. The 15 hits and 14 runs both marked season bests for the Mariners (14-21).
Every starting position player but Wilson Valdez had a hit, and five had multiple hits. Beltre, Richie Sexson and Raul Ibanez all hit home runs, with Sexson and Ibanez going back to back in the third inning to mark the first back-to-back Seattle homers all season.
The performance marked quite a turnaround for a team that had scored just eight runs in its first five games of May.
Then there was Pineiro, who entered the game with a 5.66 ERA. He was mostly a victim of his own inability to throw first-pitch strikes, as only three of Boston’s first 11 batters fell behind on the first pitch. Pineiro eventually gave up four walks and hit a batter in 3 2/3 innings of work.
“He just didn’t have command of anything,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “He couldn’t throw strikes, and that’s just not him. He didn’t pitch ahead of hitters and have command like he normally does.”
Pineiro left the game with Seattle trailing 6-5 in the top of the fourth, but the Mariners’ offense took over from there. Boston starter Jeremi Gonzalez got chased from the game after giving up back-to-back singles in the bottom of the fourth, then Beltre welcomed former Mariner John Halama to the game by hitting a three-run homer on the Boston reliever’s first pitch. The upper-deck shot gave Seattle an 8-6 lead – one the Mariners would never relinquish.
Bret Boone, Wiki Gonzalez and Randy Winn all doubled off Halama in the four-run fifth, with Winn’s three-run, bases-clearing double giving Seattle a 12-6 lead. Gonzalez added an RBI double, and Ichiro Suzuki and RBI triple, in the sixth.
Seattle reliever Julio Mateo, who has been solid all season, pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings to get the Mariners into the eighth inning with a comfortable lead. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last 15 innings and has allowed just one in 22 innings of work for the entire season.
Boston did manage to get 13 hits, including a pair by Johnny Damon to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 18 games. Damon entered the game leading the American League in hitting, with a batting average of .383.
The game marked Boston’s second loss in the last 10 games, while Seattle won for just the second time in 12 outings. Both wins came against the Red Sox.
The most baffling part was that the Mariners’ best offensive performance of the season went underappreciated by the home fans. About a fifth of the 44,534 fans were on the Red Sox bandwagon, many of them cheering the defending champions as they stretched before batting practice.
Little did the transplanted, suddenly-faithful Boston fans realize that their team would get out-slugged by those light-hitting bats from Seattle.
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