WARRIORS LOOK TO BASH CRASH

It's playoff time and the excitement is in the air as the West Virginia Crash travel to Lima for Round 2.

By Joel Renner

Lima Warriors Chief Staff Reporter

8/16/07 – LIMA, OH -- After 325 days of waiting for a post-season game, the Lima Warriors are ready to take the first step at winning the United States Football Alliance Championship.  The Warriors felt they underachieved that cool night Aug. 26, 2006 after a 35-22 loss in Grand Rapids and are ready to lose the bad taste in their mouth after nearly a year.

The WFC-North champion Warriors open their sixth straight postseason Saturday when they host Damieon Mills and the West Virginia Crash.

The Warriors (10-0) have reached the postseason six of the seven season of existence and have won four straight division titles.  However, the were eliminated by Great Lakes in 2002, fell to Mountain State in 2003, routed by Hardin County 24-7 in the OVFL Championship of the 2004 playoffs and lost at Grand Rapids each of the two next seasons.

“It feels great to be undefeated, but there is only one goal this season and that is to win a championship,” coach John Parkins said.  “In that past, the guys kind of lost some of their intensity and focus after a bye week, but I don’t think that’s going to be an issue this year with this squad.”

Last season, the Warriors were favored as one of a few possible teams to win the conference.  This season, though, they are a runaway favorite to win the WFC and looked solid down the stretch especially in a 47-0 win over Motor City on Aug. 4 that wrapped up their first perfect season in franchise history.

“I think they’re going to be ready to play,” Parkins said.  “We have been pretty fortunate with few injuries this season and the Crash are going to get a full dose of the Lima Warriors.”

The most glaring problem this season has been Lima's penalties, which they hope to minimize in the playoffs.  The Warriors give up 46.7 yards per game in penalties.  This has been balanced out by the defense allowing none of their 10 opponents to rush past 50 yards in a game and only gave up 2.0 yards rushing per game, as the defense has broke many previous franchise records in the 2007 season.

Lima’s defense will get tested right away against Mills, who has many talented players to give the ball to, including Kenny Davis, a standout receiver at West Virginia State.  Davis caught a touchdown pass in the regular-season meeting where Lima came away with a 49-20 victory on the road.  Jerome Smith also will be another person that the Warriors pay close attention to after he caught a 70-yard pass for a TD and barreled his way into the end zone with a short TD run.

“We cannot arm tackle or dive at the legs of these running backs since they are too big and too good,” Parkins told his team.  “I want great, sound, textbook-style tackling on Saturday.”

The crowds for home games have averaged near 1,000 fans this season and the players and staff hopes to see a record-breaking crowd for the playoffs.

“Our crowd is loud and if they get behind us even more, it’s night-night time,” tight end Kaene Runion said.

Runion had a big game against the Crash with 125 yards receiving and a touchdown in the Warriors’ initial meeting in West Virginia.  The Crash posted the best performance of any USFA opponent in the regular season and have the respect from the Warriors players and coaches.

One story of this game is whether or not the Crash (5-3) will be rusty after not stepping on the “gridiron” in three weeks.  The Crash had a bye in week 10 of the regular season and Southern Ohio failed to show up for the first-round playoff game in West Virginia.  West Virginia did take care of business and earned the fouth seed after beating Mt. Carmel, Delphos and Butler County to give West Virginia its first trip to the USFA playoffs.

Two of those losing teams were playing on their home field and Ryan Barnhouse, the general manager of the Crash, feels that his team can continue to play well on the road and pull out the win on Aug. 18.

“The Crash enters the game underdogs as expected,” Barnhouse said.  “However, the Crash hung a 20 spot on the Warriors earlier (during the July 14 game). Lima has a flaw in their breast plate.”

Anybody that has seen Lima play this season finds it hard to notice any “flaws” in the undefeated team, even against the Crash.

“The running and passing games looked great,” Parkins said of his offense that put up 443 yards of total offense and 20 first downs against the Crash.  “Our offense fired on all cylinders that game.”

The Crash are hoping their explosive offense can make up for their patchy defense.  West Virginia’s defense has played weak in giving up 18.1 points per game and Mills will have to have an impressive outing to make up for lack of defense.

Justin Henderson threw three touchdown passes in the season finale and has 20 for the season.  Henderson also threw for 1,586 yards and averages 9.9 per attempt with only eight interceptions this season.  Still, most of the talk leading up to Saturday’s game will concern the Warriors inability to capitalize in the playoffs after great regular seasons and how this may be the year everything comes together.

Kickoff starts at 7:05 pm and the live web cast hosted by Aaron Mathews begins at 6:30 pm.

“We have seen all the teams that we could potentially play in the playoffs,” Parkins said.  “We have already played them, beat them and we know what they can do.  It’s not going to be easy and the Crash won’t lay down for us, but I’m feeling very confident that the Warriors will be ready to play.”