Ho-hum, another wonderwork

Oh, of course. Another miracle.

In this summer when arena football has taken over the city, what else could we have expected from the Spokane Shock – the sport’s most aptly named team?

Hope never goes out of style in the arena game, and so it went for the Shock on Saturday night – needing to go 36 yards in 14 seconds for the winning touchdown, their earlier momentum thoroughly spent, all that orange in the Spokane Arena seats not nearly so loud anymore.

Naturally, the Shock got there with 2 seconds to spare.

Naturally, they watched a desperate tying field-goal attempt by another hapless opponent come up short.

Naturally, the 9,642 customers bowed the walls with their ecstasy.

Naturally, the Shock won, again – 50-47 over the Bakersfield Blitz to advance to arenafootball2’s National Conference championship game here Saturday against the Arkansas Twisters.

And after the certain miracle to come, they’ll advance to the ArenaCup in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

OK, that’s getting one miracle ahead. But doesn’t it feel as if the Shock could bank these by now?

“There’s no way you could script this,” said receiver Kevin Beard. “No way you could plan it. If you’d told somebody this was the way it was going to be after the game – the season – no one would have bought it.

“Man, this is just unbelievable. Can you believe it?”

Well, yes.

But having just seen a Shock fan with his beard dyed orange, I’m open to anything.

What the Shock have come to discover in this season of wonder – OK, this season of science fiction – is that miracles are largely a conspiracy and not just a random thunderbolt.

Take the winning play Saturday night.

Having rallied from 14 points down to twice take the lead earlier in the fourth quarter, the Shock gummed up a certain touchdown inside the final minute and had to settle for a field goal for a 43-40 lead. Bakersfield answered with a touchdown in just 26 seconds to go back up by four, leaving the Shock those bare 14 seconds to get to the end zone.

A Kyle Rowley pass to Antwone Savage got Spokane to midfield. An offsides penalty got the Shock 5 yards closer. Then Rowley had to throw one away, leaving 6 seconds.

“We’ve been in some tough spots,” Beard said. “But we’ve got a lot of playmakers on this team and when the time comes that we have to make plays, we’re going to make them.”

Well, sure. That’s what winners always say afterward.

At the time, however, even coach Chris Siegfried – who, believe me, someone should escort to a craps table or a Lotto machine pronto – admitted to doubt and discomfort.

“I was trying to think of how we could get them,” he said. “The key was getting close enough to the goal line that they couldn’t just stay off us. We wanted to stretch the defense and then check dump it down to Kevin and just get inside the 10-yard line so we could run a more aggressive play. I don’t know what I was going to run. I’m glad we didn’t have to run that play.”

They didn’t have to because a funny thing happened. The Blitz either brain cramped or got a little cocky, or both.

The backside cornerback pressed Beard close, which allowed motion man Charles Frederick some room to operate against his man, 1-on-1. A step before the goal line, Frederick wheeled left and gathered in a bullet from Rowley, curling under the tackle for the touchdown.

“I was blown away that play worked,” Siegfried said. “Charles running 1-on-1 against that guy is a good matchup for us. It allowed us to put the ball in the hands of one of the best playmakers in the league and he did what he does best.”

Echoed Beard, “They were in a strange defense. They feel comfortable playing man to man, so they stuck with what they do.

“We didn’t think we were going to get anything deep. Only a couple of seconds left, prevent would be the thing to be in. But God’s got a way of working.”

If so, it meant working overtime Saturday night.

It wasn’t just the gift field-goal attempt the Shock gave Bakersfield at the end, a 48-yarder which came back to earth right at the end wall. It was the field goal Spokane had to settle for earlier after Beard dropped a short touchdown pass with about two minutes to play, which put Bakersfield back at an advantage.

“I’m sure everybody in the crowd thought I was going to go for it on fourth down,” Siegfried laughed, “but that’s regular-season stuff.”

Funny. The regular-season stuff seems an awfully lot like the playoff stuff.

“I’m hard on myself right now because I dropped the one in the end zone,” said Beard. “I feel like it didn’t have to be that hard.”

Kevin, of course it did.

If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be the Shock.