The Spencer File: Week 9

Published on May 28, 2004 under arenafootball2 (af2)
Central Valley Coyotes News Release


Editors Note: Coyotes first-year defensive specialist VonKeith Spencer came to Central Valley as a free-agent after sitting last season out. Spencer last played in Rochester in 2002, leading the Brigade in tackles with 57, (47-solo) and 8 interceptions to go along with his 15 pass deflections.

This season Spencer is looking to rise back to the top as a feature defensive specialist in the af2. He currently leads the team in interceptions with 5 and is second on the team in tackles with 25. He missed last week's game with injuries to his shoulder and groin. His comments on the Coyotes season will appear regularly on centralvalleycoyotes.com.

By: VonKeith Spencer, defensive specialist

Last week's game. If you look at it, we are one of the least penalized teams in the league and that isn't from luck. Our 13 penalties for 68 yards were very uncharacteristic of us. It especially hurt that two of those were on plays that we had interceptions. Two weeks ago we seemed to understand what it takes to win, but somewhere between 6:30 and 10:30 last Saturday we lost focus. I really think we are starting to gel as a team and hopefully that shows this weekend.

Although I was injured and didn't play last week, I'll be out there this Saturday. My shoulder is fine and I'm resting and rehabbing my groin now so I can be as healthy as possible for the game. It's only a little painful when I turn, but nothing that will keep me form playing this week.

It's well known around here that last year this franchise was 1-6 going into week 9 and they won all but one of their remaining games to make it into the playoffs. However, I am not concerned about last year's team. We are here in 2004 and focused on getting a win against Bakersfield this Saturday.

The last 5 games I've had an interception. I'm not going to predict anything for this weekend but I'd rather get a win than an interception. It's still nice and it is good to set personal goals. My personal goal is to get at least 10 picks this year. But I'll do whatever it takes to win. If that means zero interceptions for the rest of the season, I' take it in a heartbeat.

Jermaine Smith is now 100 percent healthy and this is great for our defense. With Kilangi, Jermaine, and myself out there, we see seem to be able to play well together, flying to the ball and making things happen. It's so much easier because we have all been corners for a while now, when most of the two-way players were wide receivers in college who are athletic enough to play defense.

In Week 2 against Bakersfield we lost 48-65 in a tough game. The reason we lost was because we only played 30 minutes of football out of a 60 minute game. In professional football, the talent level is so high that if a team only plays half a game, it is impossible to win, especially when playing a good team like Bakersfield.

This week against Bakersfield the secondary is really going to try to be physical at the line of scrimmage so we are able to re-route the receivers and not just pass them off. We have studied hard this week and instead of focusing on Eric Mahanke, their best receiver statistically, we are going to focus on stopping the Bakersfield offense as a whole. We need to dictate what they do this week and be the aggressors out there. If we do this we will have a good chance of getting a win. All we are going to do is line up and play ball at 7:30.

Hopefully we get a good crowd at this week's game. Especially since we got a win the last time we played in front out our fans two weeks ago. I know it gets me excited when there are a lot of people cheering on the team, for me it's a whole other mind frame. It gives us a little extra energy that we may need at the end of the game in crunch time.

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