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Duo of Cavender, Taplin Earn af2 Co-Offensive Player of the Week Award

May 19, 2009 - arenafootball2 (af2)
Stockton Lightning News Release


STOCKTON, Calif. - The Stockton Lightning of the arenafootball2 league announced in conjunction with the af2 League Office that both QB Chad Cavender and WR Justin Taplin have been named Russell Athletic af2 Co-Offensive Players of the Week (ending Mar. 17).

The honor marks the first in the af2 careers of Cavender and Taplin, who become the second and third members of the Lightning to win the league's Offensive Player of the Week honor (QB Andy Collins, Mar. 31). Cavender and Taplin are the first duo to share the af2's weekly offensive award since 2002 (Russell Copeland and Tim Lester, Memphis - Week 3).

Cavender, in his first af2 campaign and Taplin, in his third af2 season, both had career nights in Stockton's 83-56 upset win at home in Week 8 against Rio Grande Valley.

The 6-foot, 190-pound Cavender, in his third career start, set a team record with 10 touchdown passes against the Dorados. The former University of Sioux Falls (NAIA) standout also completed 21-of-35 passes for a career-high 359 yards with just one interception. The rookie signal caller also had six rushes for 11 yards and one touchdown.

The majority of Cavender's scoring passes on Saturday went to Taplin as the Arizona State University (NCAA) alum set a Lightning single-game record with seven touchdown catches. He finished the night with nine receptions for a game-high 172 yards. Taplin leads Stockton in receiving (65-856-21 TDs) and ranks among the league leaders in points per game (3rd-21.7), receiving yards per game (4th-142.7) and receptions per game (4th-10.83).

Cavender's 10 scoring tosses finished two shy of the af2 single-game record (Brett Dietz of Louisville, 2006) and Taplin's seven touchdown catches finished one shy of the af2 single-game record (Antwone Savage of Spokane and Chavis McCollister of South Georgia, 2007).

ABOUT RUSSELL ATHLETIC

For more than 100 years, Russell Athletic has supplied America's athletes and teams with the latest innovations to help them perform at their best and is a leading supplier of team uniforms at the high school, college, and professional level. Russell Athletic activewear and college licensed products are broadly distributed and marketed through department stores, sports specialty stores, retail chains, and college bookstores. For more information, log onto www.russellathletic.com.

The Lightning continue a stretch of four home games in five weeks with a Week 9 battle at Stockton Arena against the Boise Burn on Saturday, May 23 at 7:00 p.m. The game can be heard and viewed online, free-of-charge, courtesy of Nifty Online TV at www.niftytv.com/af2.

Season, individual and group tickets for the 2009 Lightning regular season are on sale now. For more information on season tickets, merchandise, or other information, please call the Lightning at (209) 373-1500 or visit www.stocktonlightning.com.

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