The Washington Wolfpack traveled to Dodge City, Kansas, for the Southwest Kansas Storm’s final home game of the season in the United Wireless Arena.
This game is a contender for game of the year in the Arena Football League. These teams traded blows back and forth from the first play to the last, quite literally.
Diondre Borel Impressed
The Washington Wolfpack started the game with the ball, and a new quarterback stepped in. Jacob Ta’Ase was benched in favor of Diondre Borel. Borel is a veteran quarterback from Utah State who had a few stops at wide receiver in the NFL before a long indoor career at quarterback.
Things didn’t start off great for Borel. On the game’s first snap, he fumbled, and Vincent DiLeo II recovered it.
Borel would settle in and look great from there on. He tossed five touchdown passes and ran in another one.
With four seconds left in the game, Borel hit Jordan Pouncey for a 49-yard touchdown pass, the duo’s second touchdown connection that would tie the game for Mellisa Strother to kick the game-winning extra point.
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Back and Forth Game
For the Southwest Kansas Storm, once again, Matt Struck took the quarterback snaps for the entire game. The quarterback out of Southern Oregon threw for two touchdowns, including a full-field 50-yard bomb to Chris Platt Jr. with just 9:45 left in the game.
The Storm’s special teams game was on fire, with kicker Dillion Burkhard kicking not one but two Deuce plays on kickoffs, awarding the Storm an extra four points.
Return man Daquan Bailey-Brown made one grave error on a kick return trying to lateral the ball to a teammate that resulted in a fumble and subsequent Wolfpack touchdown. On the ensuing kickoff, Bailey-Brown made up for it, returning the kick for a touchdown of their own.
The Wolfpack’s 15-7 lead early in the game was the biggest lead either team had ever held. When one team scored, the other seemingly answered within a few plays.
When one team turned the ball over or failed to score, the other followed suit. These teams brought their all to the arena on Saturday night and put on a hell of a show for Arena League fans in Dodge City and watched on the league’s YouTube channel.
Washington, who was already out of playoff contention, heads back home to Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett, Washington, to host the Wichita Regulators, who lost 63-18 to the Orlando Predators in Week 9.
The Storm will go head to Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium to face off with the Nashville Kats in a win and get in a game for the Arena League Playoffs.
