Shock cruise in af2 opener

Spokane opened its 2009 arenafootball2 season in familiar fashion, thumping Stockton 59-42 at the Arena.

Read on below for my unedited game story that will run in Saturday’s S-R. (I’m going to try something new here. I’m going to post stats below the game story and see if I can get it coded correctly. OK, four attempts later, it didn’t work. So I’ll try to link to the stats Saturday morning!).

By Jim Meehan

Staff writer

That looked familiar.

Raul Vijil finding the end zone, Nick Davila firing touchdown passes and the defense coming up with key stops. Spokane opened its 2009 arenafootball2 season with an impressive 59-42 victory over Stockton on Friday in front of another packed house of 10,548 at the Arena.

Spokane , winners of three division titles and one ArenaCup in its first three years of existence, is 8-0 all-time against the Lightning and 21-4 in regular-season home games. Stockton dropped to 1-1.

“As usual, we had great support and I know everybody wanted one more point, but we just weren’t able to get it,” said head coach Adam Shackleford, referring to the promotion where fans receive a free chalupa when Spokane reaches 60 points. “I would say we were a C-plus or a B-minus. If we were any more than that, I’d be a little worried right now.”

Spokane made three defensive stops in the first half, the biggest coming in the closing seconds of the second quarter. The Shock scored on their first four possessions and led 28-21 with first-and-goal at the Stockton 8-yard line.

But Vijil was clobbered as he tried to catch a pass at the 5 and the ball popped into the arms of the Lightning linebacker Jay Hunt. Stockton was driving for a potential tying touchdown, but quarterback Andy Collins was flushed to the right sideline and tried an across-the-field pass that was picked off by Kevin McCullough, who returned it 40 yards for a touchdown to give the Shock a 35-21 halftime lead.

“I did get some big eyes and I fumbled it around a little bit,” McCullough said, “but I was able to come down to it.”

Vijil and af2 rookie Charles Dillon, a Washington State University product, each had two touchdowns in the first half. Vijil scored on an unusual play. He went in motion and was drilled at the line of scrimmage by a defender, but he was then left uncovered and made an easy catch over the middle and followed Dillon downfield for a 33-yard scoring play.

“I got smacked,” said Vijil, who scored four touchdowns receiving and one rushing. “One guy was supposed to take me, but I fought through it and got open.”

Spokane took command in the third quarter. The Shock scored on their first series on Davila’s perfectly thrown 35-yard touchdown pass to Vijil.

“That’s something you practice and you get that timing down,” Vijil said. “I was with Davila all last year. It’s kind of nice having a quarterback come back. We haven’t had that here.”

Spokane ’s defense held and another Davila-to-Vijil connection hiked the lead to 49-21.

If it wasn’t over by then, the Shock defense sealed the deal with another goal-line stop. After Collins’ 45-yard run to the Shock 2, McCullough made two straight tackles and Collins tossed two incomplete passes, the latter batted away by Sergio Gilliam.

“It felt like playing outdoors again,” McCullough said. “ Stockton likes to run ball a lot on the goal line and (the defensive line) was tearing up their offensive line. There were huge holes to run through for Lee (Foliaki) and I, and we were able to make plays because of the defensive line.”

Stockton closed within 20 points twice, but the Shock answered, once with a touchdown and once with a Brian Jackson field goal. Stockton scored with eight seconds left to account for the final margin.

Davila passed for 228 yards and six touchdowns. Vijil, Andy Olson and Dillon combined for 17 catches.

“It’s a real fast game, that’s the biggest part, getting used to the speed of the game,” Dillon said. “I remember I told (Davila) during our preseason game that I could barely hear him. He told me, ‘If you can barely hear me now, you really aren’t going to be able to hear me when it’s a real game.’ Our crowd was great.”

Spokane entertains Tri-Cities next Saturday.