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2000 Season Game 2 (4/22/00): Albany vs New England |
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Firebirds survive without Brown
ALBANY -- The spotlight that "Touchdown'' Eddie Brown left behind isn't an easy one to fill. And it looked like nobody would when the Albany Firebirds stumbled to a poor start in their first game without their retired star.
Finally, in the second half, "Hometown'' Carl Sacco and a punishing Leroy Thompson stepped forward to help the Firebirds triumph over the New England Sea Wolves 41-34 Saturday night in the team's home opener before 11,769 fans at Pepsi Arena.
During an 81-second span of the fourth quarter, Sacco, an Albany Academy graduate, caught a 15-yard touchdown pass that gave the Firebirds lead for good 33-27, then returned an interception three yards for the clinching touchdown.
"I'm definitely not used to this,'' said Sacco, named the game MVP. "I'm definitely more the low-key guy. On any given night, we have a lot of great players who can step up. It was a great team effort and a great win for us.''
The Firebirds, defending Arena Football League champions, improved to 2-0 in their first game since Brown, the league's all-time leading receiver, retired Wednesday to spend more time with his daughter.
He was on the field before the game, when the Firebirds held a ring ceremony and raised their championship banner.
It was obvious the Firebirds missed Brown in the first half. The league's highest-scoring team in '99 could manage only one touchdown and trailed 14-12 at halftime.
Hopkins, replacing Brown at offensive specialist, didn't catch a pass in the first quarter and finished with modest totals of four catches, 34 yards and one touchdown.
quarterback Mike Pawlawski, who completed 20 of 32 passes for an unusually low 176 yards and only two touchdowns, gave credit to a New England defense dedicated to taking away the long pass.
"They played a lot of zone, and I'm sure that would have been their game plan with or without Eddie,'' Pawlawski said. "On top of that, I missed a lot of passes that I wouldn't normally miss. I didn't play real well.''
Firebirds head coach Mike Dailey: "We were really out of synch in the first half, no question about it. We had already put in the game plan, had our meetings and practiced for a day when Eddie decided to retire.
"And I think New England did a good job. They had a good scheme working, we went in at halftime and talked about how we'd have to run the ball, particularly at the goal-line area.''
Daily brought in Thompson, the 259-pound fullback who rushed for touchdowns of one and two yards, the second of which gave the Firebirds a 26-20 lead with 13:39 left in the game.
He carried 11 times for 49 yards, was the game's Ironman.
"If we couldn't get it in the air, we were going to try to knock them off the ball and be tough,'' Thompson said. "The guys up front did a hell of a job knocking them off the ball.''
New England regained the lead 27-26 on quarterback Chad Salisbury's 16-yard pass to Kerry Brown. But Pawlawski fired the 15-yard touchdown pass on a screen to Sacco, who got great blocking downfield, for a 33-27 lead with 6:54 left.
scored on defense soon after when he picked off a pass by Salisbury, who was throwing from his end zone under great pressure from linebacker Tim Brown, and strolled into the end zone for a 3-yard touchdown with 5:33 left. Pawlawski's two-point conversion pass to Hopkins made it 41-27.
"That was a great play by Carl Sacco,'' Sea Wolves coach Mike Hohensee said. "He stabbed the thing out of the air.''
New England came back with Kenny Mitchell's 1-yard touchdown run with 56 seconds left, but Hopkins recovered the ensuing onsides kick and Albany ran out the clock.
New England's Charlie Davidson ran back the opening kickoff 54 yards to the Albany 2, more special teams woes for an Albany unit that allowed a league-record 305 yards in kickoff returns in the season-opener against Nashville.
Sea Wolves fullback Darren Williams scored on a 2-yard run for a 7-0 lead just 1:08 into the game.
Firebirds then went three-and-out on their first drive, almost unheard of for an offense that led the league in scoring last season and scored on 10 of 11 possessions in a 76-65 victory over Nashville last week.
Firebirds settled for two Nelson Garner field goals, a 19-yarder in the first quarter and a 25-yarder in the second quarter, and trailed 14-6 late in the first half.
In fact, the Firebirds threatened to tie their all-time low for points in the first half, six, set in their inaugural season of 1990, until Hopkins caught a touchdown pass with 5 seconds left in the half.
It was two turnovers by defensive specialist Derek Stingley that saved the team in the first half.
Stingley, a first-team all-leaguer last season, recovered a fumble in the first quarter to stop a New England drive that reached the Albany 4. The Firebirds converted the turnover into Garner's field goal on the first play of the second quarter, cutting New England's lead to 7-3.
Stingley also had an interception with 1:09 left in the first half to set up Albany's only touchdown of the half.
New England, leading 14-6, reached the Albany 24. But Stingley cut in front of Kerry Brown to pick off a Salisbury pass, returning it to the Albany 13.
From there, Albany marched to the New England 4, with Pawlawski completing a key 4-yard pass to second-year man Jake Hoffart on third-and-2.
On the next play, Pawlawski hit Hopkins for a 4-yard touchdown on a slant to cut New England's lead to 14-12 with five seconds left in the half. The Firebirds tried a two-point coversion to tie, but Pawlawski's pass for Hopkins was too high.
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