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Spokane Shock

Spokane Empire after strong finish with eye on top seed for playoffs

Spokane Empire Coach Adam Shackleford, right, watches practice beside injured running back Trevor Kennedy, left, and receiver Samuel Charles, center, on Tuesday at the Spokane Arena. Charles says the team doesn’t want to “take the foot off the pedal.” (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
By Jim Meehan jimm@spokesman.com(509) 459-5585
Spokane Empire Coach Adam Shackleford, right, watches practice beside injured running back Trevor Kennedy, left, and receiver Samuel Charles, center, on Tuesday at the Spokane Arena. Charles says the team doesn’t want to “take the foot off the pedal.” (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

Last week Spokane held off Billings, a possible opponent in the Intense Conference championship game. The Empire will try to do the same against Nebraska, another potential playoff opponent, on Friday in Grand Island.

Nebraska (5-8) maintains the last Intense Conference playoff spot over Tri-Cities (3-10) because both teams have dropped six straight games. At present, Billings (6-7) has the second seed and would host Nebraska in the opening round with the winner facing No. 1 Spokane.

“We don’t want to take anything for granted,” Empire receiver Samuel Charles said. “We don’t want to take the foot off the pedal.”

Spokane (11-2) has to win its last three games and hope for help from Iowa against Sioux Falls on Saturday to beat out the Storm for the top overall seed.

“We want to catch Sioux Falls,” coach Adam Shackleford said. “We want to host (the United Bowl). It looks like we’ll have to beat Billings or Nebraska in the (Intense Conference) championship game.”

Nebraska and Spokane will be without star players. Quarterback Jameel Sewell, a two-time Indoor Football League MVP, left Nebraska for the CFL four games ago. The Danger signed former Tri-Cities quarterback Hunter Wanket earlier this week.

Spokane lost MVP candidate Trevor Kennedy to a broken leg against Billings. Josh Ferguson will start at running back.

“We definitely know we have big shoes to fill with TK going down,” Charles said. “We’ve been talking about stepping up as a unit, everybody has to assume a bigger role.”

Nebraska is averaging just over 49 points but has been held below that figure in six of its last eight games. Opponents are averaging 52.5 points.

“They like to keep two guys deep and take away the deep routes,” Shackleford said. “That’s fine with us. We feel like we’re able to stretch teams vertically and horizontally when they do that. That also keeps one guy in the box so we still have to run the football.”