Fizzle after first
The Spokane Shock were off to their strongest start of the season in Saturday night’s game against Bakersfield.
Shock quarterback Andrico Hines mixed it up in the first quarter and the Shock took a 21-0 lead on touchdowns by Katon Bethay, Andre Rector and Kelvin Morris.
It seemed like their momentum was untouchable.
Then the second quarter started.
Renna Reynolds scored two second-quarter touchdowns and the Blitz held the Shock (3-3) scoreless in the second half as division rival Bakersfield (4-2) defeated the Shock 44-28 in arenafootball2 play in front of a sellout crowd of 10,559 at the Arena.
“We hurt ourselves a lot tonight,” Hines said. “It was more us than them in that one. We have to get back to what we had been doing and execute. We have to get back to the fundamentals.”
The hurt the Shock put on themselves included four fumbles and three turnovers inside their 5-yard line. Hines was intercepted once and sacked four times – matching the total number of times he had been sacked in all five previous games.
“We got whipped, on both sides of the ball there was really no pressure coming from us,” Shock coach Adam Shackleford said. “When you turn the ball over like we did, it’s hard to win football games.”
The momentum shifted for good when a 37-yard touchdown reception for Spokane’s Antwone Savage was called back because the receiver was out of bounds.
The controversial call put Spokane on Bakersfield’s 3-yard line before a delay-of-game penalty pushed Spokane back to the 8. On the ensuing play, Rector fumbled.
‘There isn’t anything we can do about (the calls that are made),” Hines said. “We just have to focus on the things we can control – the turnovers and interceptions – and we should be fine.”
Blitz quarterback Dennis Gile connected on two passes before hooking up with Eric Mahanke on a 15-yard touchdown pass that gave Bakersfield its first and final lead of the game at 32-28.
Nathan Munson intercepted Hines on Spokane’s 9-yard line on the Shock’s next drive. After the defense stopped the Blitz, the Shock turned the ball over on downs at their 7-yard line. Bakersfield took advantage and Munson ran up the middle for an easy 2-yard score to increase the Blitz lead to 39-28.
Ben McCombs tackled Hines in the end zone for a safety and Brian Walker nailed a 20-yard field goal for the final points of the game.
“Andrico may take the blame on this one, but he didn’t have much time to throw the ball and toward the end he was throwing to one true receiver, so that’s tough for any quarterback,” Shackleford said.
Hines wasn’t the major problem, though. He completed 18 of 31 passes and finished with 168 yards. Not his best performance of the season, but far from his worst.
It was the Shock’s nagging injuries that played a large role as things continued to get worse down the stretch.
An indicator of how injuries affected the Shock offense – secondary defender Rob Keefe went in late in the fourth quarter at receiver and ended up leading the Shock with six catches.
Receivers Savage and Rector both injured their hamstrings in the second half of the game and lineman Jerome Stevens left the field in the second quarter with an MCL strain. Receivers Chico Mackey and Raul Vijil, who was a game-time decision, did not play.
“We are hurting right now,” Shackleford said. “It’s not an excuse for losing, but when you only have a 19-man roster, five injuries is a big deal – it’s a chink in your armor.”