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Week five af2 quick hitters

April 27, 2005 - arenafootball2 (af2) News Release


SCHEDULE CHANGE: The Week 13 game between Memphis and Oklahoma City originally scheduled for Saturday, June 25 has been changed to Friday, June 24 at 8:30 p.m. ET.

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL: A rare Monday night game occurs this week as the Rio Grande Valley Dorados host the Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings at Dodge Arena at 8:00 ET. The game will be available live on www.af2tv.com. Some listings have shown the game as an 8:30 p.m. start, but it is indeed an 8:00 p.m. ET start time.

PERFECT COMPANY: The Louisville Fire, Florida Firecats and Memphis Xplorers all enter Week 5 with unbeaten records. With their wins last week, both the Firecats (4-0) and Xplorers (4-0) have set team records for best starts to a season. The Fire (3-0) have tied their best ever start. The Firecats previous best start was 3-0 in 2002. Memphis also went 3-0 in 2002. What's interesting about the 2002 season is the way both teams finished. Florida went on to advance to the ArenaCup, while Memphis ended up losing 11 of their next 13 to finish 5-11 and out of the playoffs.

AWAY FIELD ADVANTAGE: Road teams had another successful run in Week 4, going 7-3 for the weekend. For this season road teams have gone 18-15 for a .545 winning percentage. Below is a look at the all-time home team winning percentage. This year, home teams are off to the worst winning percentage in history.

SEASON HOME W-L-T HOME WIN %
2000 77-43-0 .642
2001 136-88-0 .607
2002 158-114-0 .581
2003 130-85-1 .604
2004 117-83-0 .585
2005 15-18-0 .455
TOTALS 633-431-1 .595

OH WHAT A NIGHT: Fans at the CenturyTel Center in Bossier City (site of the 2005 ArenaCup) were treated to a historic game on Saturday night when the Amarillo Dusters and Battle Wings lit up the scoreboard for a total of 154 points. Unfortunately for the Battle Wings fans their team was on the short end of the 88-66 score, but they were witness to the fifth highest scoring game in af2 history. The game featured 22 touchdowns, including a span at the end of the first half that saw four touchdowns scored in 36 seconds. Below is a look at the all-time highest scoring games in league history.

168 - San Diego (91) at Hawaii (77), May 28, 2004
165 - Arkansas (102) vs. Tulsa (63), June 22, 2002
160 - Birmingham (86) vs. Tallahassee (74), June 2, 2000
156 - Arkansas (83) vs. Hawaii (73), July 12, 2002
154 - Amarillo (88) at Bossier-Shreveport (66), April 23, 2005

"KHREEM"-ING THE COMPETITION: With his second three-sack performance of the season in Week 4, Memphis lineman KHREEM SMITH has amassed nine sacks for the season. His blistering pace puts him on track to shatter the all-time league record of 27.5 set by E.J. Burt with the Cape Fear Wildcats in 2002. Smith is on pace for 36 sacks. It should also be noted that in just four games Smith has already surpassed the league high for the entire 2004 season. Five players lead af2 with 8.5 sacks last season. If that's not impressive enough, Smith also has more sacks on his own then the totals of every other team in the league, except for the Tulsa Talons. Smith and the Talons defense both have nine sacks.

SACKS BY GP Sacks Yards
KHREEM SMITH 4 9 48
Tulsa 3 9 51
San Diego 3 8 39
Rio Grande Valley 3 7 23
Green Bay 3 7 33
WB/Scranton 4 7 28
Quad City 3 7 34
Central Valley 3 6 21
Bossier-Shreveport 4 5 46
Oklahoma City 4 5 26
Arkansas 3 4 16
Florida 4 3 12
Macon 4 3 17
Amarillo 3 3 19
Albany 3 2 6
Manchester 3 2 12
Birmingham 3 2 9
Bakersfield 3 1 4
Louisville 3 1 2
South Georgia 3 1 0

BEING PICKY: af2 defenders intercepted a total of 23 passes in Week 4, including six guys who nabbed two or more interceptions. Tulsa's NICK DAVIS led all players in Week 4 with three picks, but Quad City's MATT FORBES held on to his league lead by hauling in two fourth quarter interceptions in a win over Oklahoma City. Below are the league's interception leaders through Week 4:

PLAYER (TEAM) GP INTS TDS
Matt Forbes (Quad City) 3 5 2
Allistair Sebastian (Manchester) 2 3 1
Nick Davis (Tulsa) 2 3 0
Alex Wallace (Bakersfield) 3 3 0
Ryan Bowers (Green Bay) 3 3 0

af2 IN THE AFL: CHRIS SANDERS and KEVIN NAGLE made key contributions in Orlando's 52-49 victory over the Georgia Force. Nagle, the former Pioneers' fullback, rushed twice for 16 yards and a touchdown. Against Orlando, Sanders completed 20 of 34 passes for 236 yards and three touchdowns with zero interceptions. Sanders also rushed for a touchdown. His numbers were representative of his af2 performance last season when he threw for 4,184 yards as a member of the Manchester Wolves. The victory puts Orlando in a tie for first place in the Southern Division. Sanders was forced to step in when Orlando's starting quarterback JOE HAMILTON went down with an injury the week before ... Last Sunday on NBC former af2er JOSH WHITE rushed five times for 19 yards and two touchdowns in New York's 51-37 victory over the Philadelphia Soul. On the season White has 36 rushing attempts for 131 yards and ten touchdowns. The fullback/linebacker has also caught four passes for 69 yards and one touchdown. He got his first and only interception in Week 5 against Arizona. The New York Dragons (7-5) are in second place in the Eastern Division behind the Dallas Desperados (7-4-1).

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