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Amarillo too much for Battle Wings

April 24, 2005 - arenafootball2 (af2)
Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings News Release


BOSSIER CITY, LA - Defense may win championships, but a high-octane offense still can win a ballgame.

Quarterback Julian Reese led his Amarillo Dusters to an 86-66 victory over the host Bossier/Shreveport Battle Wings, earning the expansion franchise a victory in its first-ever af2 road trip and establishing a new league single-game record with 474 yards of total offense. Reese, the game's offensive MVP, threw for 424 yards and nine TD's, completing 27-of-34 without an interception.

Reese's surgical dissection of the Battle Wings defense offset a night in which the Duster's defense was shredded to the tune of 66 points - five more than their league-low allowance of 61 points per game. The rookie quarterback out of Indiana State hooked up 14 times with Chavis McCollister for 193 yards and four touchdowns and found D.J. Humphries seven more times for 145 yards, doing most of the damage with those two receivers.

Tim Hicks, making his first start with the 'Wings since his trade to Bossier earlier in the week, completed 18-of-32 passes for 220 yards and four touchdowns, including eight for 91 yards and three TD's to Bo Smith. Added to the big quarterback's totals was a rumbling 29-yard TD run that brought Bossier within 27-23 with only 36 seconds remaining in the first half.

Amarillo took advantage of a Battle Wing fumble on the game's first drive to take a 6-0 lead, and after Bossier tied the game with a 27-yard TD strike to Smith, never trailed again. Amarillo went up 13-6 on a seven-yard Reese-to-Humphries hookup, then traded scores through the end of the first half for a 41-30 lead.

The Dusters drew first blood to start the second half and kept right on rolling, not once being stopped by the Bossier defense. Amarillo's defense came up with two second-half interceptions, the first of which stopped a streak of touchdowns on seven straight possession by the Battle Wings. Jimmy Gaston hauled in the second as time expired on the 'Wings.

The 152 points scored by both teams is the fourth-highest total ever in an af2 game, missing by just 13 the league record. The old record for total offense by a team was 461 yards, established in the af2's inaugural season by Tallahasee in an 86-74 loss to Birmingham (6/2/00). The 86 points scored by the Dusters also matched the eighth-highest total ever scored in a game.

Reese's 424 passing yards is the second-highest single-game performance ever, 33 yards shy of the 459 passing yards piled up by Tallahassee's Shane Stafford in that offensive slugfest with the Steel Dogs.

The Battle Wings fell to 0-4 with the loss and head out on the road for a rare Monday night game next week at Rio Grande Valley. The Dorados (1-2) are fresh off a West Coast road win at Bakersfield.

Amarillo (2-1) heads out to San Diego next week for a Saturday match with the Riptide.



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