Gladiators Help Set Record in Season Opening Loss

(photo credit: Philadelphia Soul/Twitter)

The Cleveland Gladiators (0-1) and the Philadelphia Soul (1-0) set an Arena Football League record with five total interceptions returned for touchdowns. The good news is the Glads came up with two. The bad news, they gave up three, and that was just one factor in the 69-41 season-opening loss on Friday night.

Philadelphia got off to a hot start on both sides of the ball. On offense, Dan Raudabaugh completed 9 of his first 12 passes, with three of those going for touchdowns. It helped that they had two short fields thanks to a good opening kick return and an interception in the end zone on a Chris Dieker deep ball. Dieker got off to a near apocalyptic start, completing only one of his first five passes, including that interception.

Down 21-0, Cleveland finally got on the scoreboard thanks to a short field of their own. Dieker quickly redeemed himself with a 23-yard run that set up a six-yard scoring pass to Dominick Goodman to get on the board. Whatever momentum built didn't last long, as the Soul quickly went on another 21-0 run, thanks to a 18-yard pick six from DB Joe Goosby, followed just five plays later by a Dwayne Hollis 33-yard run back to further assert Philadelphia's dominance.

When you're trailing 42-7, that's a bad sign. When you're trailing 42-7 halfway through the second quarter, don't be surprised if fans are already hitting the concession stands, bars, or the parking lot. Needing further redemption, the Gladiators engineered a long drive to at least give their defense a little rest and a little pride. The eight-play, 47-yard drive ended in an 18-yard touchdown pass from Chris Dieker to Collin Taylor, and when Joe Powell took the next Dan Raudabuagh pass 37 yards to the house, the Q had a little bit more life put back into it, as the home team was only down 42-21 at the one-minute warning.

The Soul, never really needing a lot of time to score, went right back to work. Raudabaugh needed only two completions (one to WR Ryan McDaniel, and the other to WR Shaun Kauleinamoku) and DB Tracy Belton joined the Official Philadelphia Soul Pick-6 Club with 19 seconds left until halftime. Dieker had one last shot, and Cleveland nearly made the end zone, but they went into the locker room eight yards short of paydirt.

The Gladiators are known for fighting and comebacks. Down 54-21, things were falling the right way to add another to the history books. Cleveland finally found what they were looking for when their first two drives ended in success. Chris Dieker set up a four-yard Larry Beavers touchdown run, and the defense came right back to add another score of their own. Joe Powell netted his second pick-six of the night, the record fifth overall, to narrow the deficit to 54-34 with just under eight minutes left in the third quarter.

The offense finally got into a rhythm as the second half went on, but the best Cleveland could do for the rest of the night was match scores. As the fourth quarter became a battle of the backups, it also became a battle of turnovers. Chris Dieker started the 4th quarter with a sneak, and ended it with another after leaving the game on a bad sack halfway through. That wasn't the only turnover of the quarter, as backup pivot Arvill Nelson was victim of a Teddy Jennings sack fumble, and backup Philly QB Luke Collis could only muster a turnover on downs.

Chris Dieker threw a total of five touchdown passes, but only two counted officially. He ended the night completing only 19 of 35 passes for 196 yards, with the aforementioned two touchdowns and three interceptions. His counterpart, Dan Raudabaugh, completed 21 of his 33 attempts for 233 yards and seven scores of his own. He did also throw two interceptions for scores, however.

Dominick Goodman, fresh off an activation from the PUP list, started his season with a game-high nine catches for 77 yards and a score. Thyron Lewis led the Gladiators with 86 yards from his six catches, and Soul WR Shaun Kauleinamoku led the game with 95 yards and three scores from just seven catches.

Aside from the scoring madness, there were some other defensive plays of note. Joe Powell had a team-high seven tackles on the night for Cleveland, while Tracy Belton led all defenders with eight tackles. Four Philadelphia players also registered a sack (Wesley Mauia, Teddy Jennings, Justin Lawrence, and Jake Metz), while neither Dan Raudabaugh nor Luke Collis get touched much throughout the night.

The Gladiators will have to quickly dust themselves off, as the Tampa Bay Storm (coming off a painful loss of their own) come to town on Saturday, April 9. Kickoff is at 7 p.m., and Cleveland will look to avoid an 0-2 start.