On Saturday night at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, in-state rivals Arizona Rattlers and Northern Arizona Wranglers faced off in their last regular season game, their third meeting of the season.
Arizona won both of the previous two matchups. A decisive 60-34 victory in late June, and a much closer 63-62 win on June 3.
Throughout the game, Rattlers linebacker Connor Taylor made several critical tackles and seemed to be right there on every defensive play.
Veteran defensive back Dillion Winfrey also came up big with three solo tackles and two broken up passes.
Isiah Scott and Jager Gardner both scored touchdowns for Arizona in the first half. Scott scored on a 17-yard pass play from quarterback Drew Powell, and Jager Gardner ran for a 4-yard touchdown, both in the first quarter.
Arizona would go on to score three more touchdowns before halftime, including Chris Terrell’s 21-yard fumble recovery that got the crowd on their feet, and rushing touchdowns from Gardner and Powell, to make the score 34-11 at the half.
Despite Northern Arizona’s slow start, they reeled in the Rattlers during the third quarter with three touchdowns against only one by Arizona.
Rattlers’ kicker Shane Mclnerney impressed with a 42-yard field goal, his longest of the night, while Isaiah Huston caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from Powell.
After several Rattlers defensive penalties, Taylor put the finishing touches on the Rattlers’ final regular season victory with a huge sack, stifling the Wranglers’ last good chance to score.
With tonight’s victory, head coach Kevin Guy officially reaches 250 wins.
“Win number one was—I was the interim head coach of the New Jersey Redhawks the last four games of the season and I started 0-3. I lost two games on the last play and uh—the third one we kinda got blown out—and we had a young team that year,” said head coach Kevin Guy when asked if he remembered his first win.
The Rattlers post season will begin next Saturday at Footprint center at 6:05pm where they will face the very same Northern Arizona Wranglers for the fourth time this season.
“We’ve kind of had playoff mindset for eight weeks now, and we knew we had to win out, we kind of put ourselves in a hole and a lot of that had to do with injuries,” Guy told reporters after Saturday’s game.
