Shock defense secures win

It was third down on the final scoring drive of the game for Spokane when Spokane Shock coach Adam Shackleford got a tap on the shoulder and received some untimely news – his kicker, John Koker, had suffered a concussion during the game-saving tackle he had made minutes before.

With time running down on the clock and the Shock holding onto a five-point lead, Shackleford turned to the Shock’s resilient defense to make one final stop.

The Shock keep forgetting that one little thing about the arenafootball2 league – it’s not supposed to be about the defense.

This one was, however, as the Shock came up with two huge fourth-quarter stops and division-leading Spokane (6-3) slipped past Everett (2-7), beating the Hawks 52-47 in front of a sellout crowd Saturday night at the Arena.

Hawks defensive back Raymond Little II scrambled to collect the final kick of the game in the end zone and by the time he had control of the ball, an open field and one thing stood in his way – a kicker named Koker.

Koker tackled Little on the Shock’s 10-yard line, which resulted in Koker’s concussion, and the Shock defense made the first of two critical stops over the next seven plays.

Everett quarterback Jason Campbell tossed a 3-yard pass to receiver Phillip Goodman and a defensive holding penalty on the ensuing play brought the Hawks inside the red zone with a first down on the 3-yard line.

Everett recovered its fumble on the next play for a 1-yard loss and Spokane’s Alex Teems broke up a pass play on second-and-goal. The Hawks were called for a delay of game penalty that dropped them back to the 9 and Spokane defenders Rob Keefe and Nygel Rogers teamed up to break up the next two pass plays and force the Hawks to turn the ball over on downs with 1 minute, 43 seconds remaining on the clock.

The Shock didn’t do much to advance the ball on their final scoring drive, but they did burn all but 4 seconds off of the clock before turning the ball back over on their 11.

The Hawks took one final snap and the ball slipped in and out of Goodman’s hands in the end zone as time expired.

“It’s a sign of character and a sign that we have the right guys,” Shackleford said. “At the end of the game the defense makes a great play to get us the ball back, we run the clock down to fourth down and our trainer comes up to me and says, ‘Koker has a concussion.’ So now we’re not able to kick a field goal – we just had to burn as much clock as we could with the run and put it back on our defense to win on the last play of the game, and they did that.

“It’s not a situation we want to put them in, but when you don’t have a kicker, it’s tough to kick the ball out your own end zone.”

Antwone Savage, who hauled in four touchdowns on 14 catches to lead the Shock receivers, scored the go-ahead TD and final points of the game on a 23-yard pass from quarterback Andrico Hines with 6 minutes remaining in the final quarter.

Hines, who played on an injured hamstring, connected on 20 of 27 passes for 233 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.

“Andrico is hurting pretty bad and he stood in there tonight and delivered for us,” Shackleford said. “The kid has the heart of a champion.”

The Hawks defensive line dominated the first half, putting pressure on Hines and limiting the Shock to 70 yards of total offense. But as the Shock proved down the stretch, it didn”t matter.

“In arena ball you never know who is going to step up,” Keefe said. “It’s funny, as a secondary we were having trouble, really, for the first time all year … when we’re down at halftime, it doesn’t matter. We were down by 15 at one point, and it didn’t matter.

“I think you can see if we can win like that – without playing our greatest football – it just shows what kind of team we have.”

Raul Vijil’s highly anticipated return for the Shock didn’t go unnoticed. The veteran receiver scored two TDs, including a 57-yard kickoff return in the first half.

“We’re getting healthy at the right time,” Shackleford said. “We’re 4-1 with all those (injured) guys out – and I’ll take that. We’ll keep rolling.”

The Shock hit the road for the next two weeks before returning home on June 23 to take on the Boise Burn at the Arena.