Avengers work overtime to beat Crush

by Tim Peterson, Mid Valley News
Published on February 16, 2003 under Arena Football League (1987-2008) (AFL I)

(Denver) - This is starting to become a habit. For the Los Angeles Avengers, it's a habit that they don't want to break. For the second straight week the Avengers had a fantastic finish as they beat the Colorado Crush 59-53 in overtime Sunday before a sold out crowd at the Pepsi Center in Denver.

Remy Hamilton booted an 18-yard field goal with one second left in regulation to tie it at 53 and Tony Graziani hit Greg Hopkins for a 21 yard touchdown pass in overtime for the victory.

The Avengers won the toss and elected to kick off to the Crush to begin the extra session. On fourth down, Wasswa Serwanga knocked down a John Dutton pass to halt a Crush drive. The Avengers took over in their own territory. Four plays later, Graziani found Hopkins in the end zone for the game winner.

Colorado took an early 13-9 advantage in the first quarter but the Avengers rang up 24 points in the second to take a lead into halftime. Graziani connected with Chris Jackson twice for scores. The second gave LA a 26-20 lead. The key play came on the ensuing kick off when Siaha Burley recovered a fumble in the end zone to give the Avengers a 33-20 lead with 24 seconds left in the half.

The Crush cut it to 33-26 with one second left when Dutton found Charlie Davidson behind the LA secondary for six.

The Avengers seemed to gain control of the game in the third quarter when they assumed a two touchdown lead. Mathias Vavao needed four carries to finally bust in from the one yard line and the Graziani- Jackson connection worked again for seven yards and LA led 47-33.

But as is the case in the Arena Football League there is no control. After Dutton found Damian Harrell on a four yard scoring strike early in the fourth, the Crush defense came up big. Andre Cooper recovered a fumble by Jackson and seven seconds later Dutton hooked up with Harrell again. The pass should have been intercepted but Harrell made a Jordanesque leap in front of two Avenger defenders, grabbed the ball and leaned across the goal line. The two point conversion failed but the Crush was within striking distance.

Remy Hamilton was true again for the Avengers from 25 yards out but Dutton hit his favorite target Harrell again for the Crush lead. Harrell caught a slant pass from Dutton for the two point conversion to put John Elway's franchise up 53-50 with 1:50 left.

The Avengers started their last drive of regulation with 1:00 left and drove the field to set up Hamilton's game tying kick.

Dutton threw for eight touchdown passes on the day and the Crush had 351 total yards compared to 251 for LA. Grazian tossed three TD's for Los Angeles.

The Avengers remained undefeated at 3-0 with the victory and will travel to the windy city to take on the Chicago Rush next week. The Crush dropped to 0-3 with the loss.

Arena Football League (1987-2008) Stories from February 16, 2003

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