July 14, 1998 - Final	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Totals
Arizona					34
Albany					58

Firebirds maul Rattlers

By MIKE MacADAM
Gazette Sportswriter

ALBANY - Except for a neck injury to Carlton Johnson, it was a perfect night for the Albany Firebirds Monday.

The Firebirds beat up the defending ArenaBowl champion Arizona Rattlers at Pepsi Arena, 58-34, to stop a three-game losing streak.

The 7-4 Firebirds scored on every possession except their last one, when backup quarterback Jeff Loots ran out the clock, and the defense hounded Arizona quarterback Sherdrick Bonner, the top-rated passer in the league, and punished the 8-3 Rattlers' receivers.

It all added up to the finest moment the team has experienced this season, before a live national television audience, no less.

Most importantly, though, it re-established the Firebirds as a team to be reckoned with.

"I hope this gives us confidence; I believe it will, and that's the key right now," Albany head coach Mike Dailey said. "We beat the defending champions, so hopefully we've shown ourselves and everybody else that we can beat the best team in the league. It was a playoff atmosphere."

The only down note on the night for Albany was the injury to Johnson, who hurt his neck on the first play of the second half with the Firebirds holding a 38-24 lead.

After Bonner completed a pass to Calvin Schexnayder, the Firebirds stacked him up. Johnson flew into the pile head first and was also hit in the side of the helmet by Arizona's Brian Easter.

Johnson was laid out motionless on his back for several minutes, and he was secured to a stretcher and taken to Albany Medical Center.

Team physician Dr. Joe Marotta said Johnson was moving his limbs by the time he got to the hospital, and preliminary X-rays showed no broken bones, but it was likely Johnson would have to stay overnight for more tests.

"They [team trainers] called Carlton in the hospital, and the first thing Carlton says is, `Did we win, what was the score?' " Firebirds offensive specialist Eddie Brown said. "He wasn't concerned about his health, he was worrying about making sure we won the game."

Brown earned MVP honors for catching eight passes for 158 yards and four touchdowns, including a 40-yarder from Mike Pawlawski on the ensuing possession after Johnson's injury that exemplified how much fight the Firebirds showed Monday night.

Brown came back to catch an underthrown ball at the Arizona 10, was wrapped up by Muhammad Oliver at the five, and appeared to be on his way to hitting the turf.

But Brown battled and battled and dragged Muhammad to the goalline.

"You see a play like that, everybody gets cranked up," Dailey said.

"If you notice, the whole team went out there with enthusiasm, and I wanted to do something to keep it going," Brown said. "Pawlawski threw it out there, I caught it, and it was me and him [Muhammad]. Last week, I got stopped on the one-yardline by three people, and I said I will not be denied tonight by one person. I was going to punch him and make him let me go, but I was getting in that end zone. I was going to grab his facemask and pull him in with me."

The touchdown gave Albany a 44-24 lead, and Brown caught his fourth touchdown early in the fourth quarter to make it 51-27.

The Firebirds' defense dogged Arizona's receivers all night, and although Schexnayder caught 11 passes for 164 yards, he scored only twice.

Derek Stingley covered Schexnayder for the most part and had what Dailey said was the best game of his three-year career.

"We were physical on both sides of the ball," Stingley said. "We just hammered them. We just kept bringing it on defense."

The Firebirds, who now lead the Eastern Division by one game over New Jersey, held the ball for all of two plays in the entire third quarter, and still outscored Arizona, 6-3.

Although it was fun to play in a game televised on EPSN2, the Firebirds never lost focus, Pawlawski said.

"This team is mentally tough," he said. "If I was playing on a dirt lot, I'd play the same way. It doesn't matter if we're on TV or not. It's nice that the family gets to watch back in California, but other than that, it's a game, whether we've got cleats on, or we're playing in tennis shoes. I'd hate to ever look back and say I didn't play hard in that one because I wasn't on TV. This was big because we beat the defending champs."

Notebook

Ticket sales for the game were hampered when the TicketMaster computers went down about an hour before kickoff. Ticket salespeople were hand-writing tickets at one point, until the computers came back up 20 minutes before the game. . . .

How's this for dedication? Rattlers fan Mike Lantz and his 9-year-old son, Tyler, flew all the way from Phoenix for the game.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws