LandSharks smoke Beef; remain undefeated
05/26/02 Lake Charles American Press
Lake Charles continued its assault on the NIFL, the latest victims the Omaha Beef.
The LandSharks scored early and often in the first half and limited Omaha to one offensive score as they smoked the Beef 40-21 Saturday night at the Civic Center to improve to 9-0.
"In the first half we were able to put enough points on the board," said LandSharks coach Kip Texada. "We just couldn't put them away."
Lake Charles built a 17-0 lead before a safety and a kickoff return for a touchdown on the ensuing free kick closed the gap to 17-8. After a LandSharks field goal the Beef (5-4) returned an interception 20 yards for a touchdown to narrow the margin to 20-15.
"Our offense gave up some points, but this is a team sport," Texada added. "We should have scored 50 or so, but we scored our average.
"If we can score 40 or more points a game, we will win 90 percent of them."
The Beef entered the game with a highly touted running game sprinkled with talent from the University of Nebraska, but managed only 54 yards on the ground to the LandSharks' 80.
"We knew they had a good running game and we focused on that," Texada said. "Their division is a run-oriented division and that is their strong point."
When not giving up points the LandSharks offense continued to score in the first half, scoring 10 points in the final 17 seconds of the first half.
Shadrick McAfee hauled in an 18-yard touchdown pass from Ted Robison with 17 seconds left in the half and after a LandSharks interception by Butch Monticello with .09 seconds left in the half, placekicker Whitney Hullin kicked a field goal from his own 7-yard line for a franchise record 48-yarder. He then took off his helmet and started break dancing at midfield.
The LandSharks added a kickoff return and a field goal in the second half.
"We need to stay hungry," Texada said. "We could have scored a lot more and we need to put teams away when we have the chance."
Omaha added its only offense score of the night in the fourth quarter on a 16-yard run by Clinton Childs to pull the Beef to within 37-21 with 12:17 to play.
The scoring was slow in the second half, but the fans were still on the edge of their seats hoping the LandSharks would score 45 points making a ticket stub worth a free round of Putt-Putt.
Texada's troops drove to the Omaha 1-yard line with 47 seconds to play to the chants of "we want Putt-Putt." But, two runs that netted a loss of one yard and a spiked pass on third down gave the LandSharks a fourth-and-goal situation from the 2-yard line with 3.4 seconds remaining.
The final attempt was an incomplete pass to avoid a sack.
"We tried to win it for the fans," Texada said. "Whenever we can win them something we try to do it. We won them Big Macs earlier and we wanted to get the Putt-Putt for them."
LandSharks 40, Beef 21
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Beef 0 15 0 6 — 21
LandSharks 10 20 7 3 — 40
SCORING SUMMARY
LC: FG Whitney Hullin 15
LC: Shadrick McAfee 17 pass from Ted Robison (Hullin kick)
LC: Tony Citizen 1 run (Hullin kick)
O: Safety (Dwayne Harris tackles Robison in end zone)
O: Steve Lovell 51 kickoff return (kick blocked)
LC: FG Hullin 28
O: Randy Potter 20 interception return (Brandon Stewart kick)
LC: McAfee 18 pass from Robison (Hullin kick)
LC: FG Hullin 48
LC: McAfee 50 kickoff return (Hullin kick)
O: Clinton Childs 16 run (run failed)
LC: FG Hullin 20
STATISTICS
Omaha LC
First Downs 8 11
Rushing Yards 54 80
Passing Yards 98 74
Passes 9-23-4 10-19-0
Fumbles-Lost 0-0 1-0
Penalties-yards 8-32 4-23
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
RUSHING — Omaha: Tory Veland 2-(minus 24), Brock Bailey 2-19, Clinton Childs 11-59. Lake Charles: Tony Citizen 12-63, Freddy Bynum 2-1, Ted Robison 6-1, Eric Young 3-15.
PASSING — Omaha: Tory Veland 2-10-2, Brock Bailey 7-13-3. Lake Charles: Ted Robison 10-19-0.
RECEIVING — Omaha: Darryl Carter 1-15, Steve Lovell 3-39, Clinton Childs 2-14, Herman Gordon 1-30. Lake Charles: Tony Citizen 3-15, Shadrick McAfee 3-48, Leroy Jackson 2-13, Eric Young 1-16.
