Empire 1 win away

Empire top Carolina, will play Columbus for NAL championship

Albany starts slowly, runs past Cobras in National Arena League semifinal.

According to their coach, the Albany Empire have yet to play their best game. Tom Menas is hoping that will come next week.

The Empire, who have been the National Arena League’s dominant team all season, overcame a slow start Saturday night and wore down the Carolina Cobras 55-41 in a semifinal playoff game in front of 3,053 at Times Union Center.

For the second time in three years, the downtown arena will be host to an arena football championship game next Saturday night. The Empire, trying to duplicate their Arena Football League title of two years and three days earlier, will face the Columbus Lions for the NAL crown.

“We want to peek August 14th,” Menas said. “If we had peaked today, I’d have been a little concerned. I just told them, great individual performances, but we haven’t played as a team yet. I’m anxious to see that team play.”

It would be hard to improve on what the top-seeded Empire (8-1) have done in their inaugural NAL season, which came about after the AFL folded for financial reasons in November 2019. (The

NAL did not play in 2020 because of COVID-19.)

The coach who led Albany to its AFL championship, Rob Keefe, resigned less than seven weeks before the start of this season. Menas was hired four days later and hastily assembled a roster that so far has proven to be better than those of the league’s other five teams.

“Our story was unbelievable that we played this year,” Menas said. “Then the story got more unbelievable that we finished the season in the lead at 7-1. Now the story just got even crazier that we’re in the championship game. We’re playing a team that’s been around for 15 years, and we’ve been around for 15 weeks.”

Tommy Grady, a threetime AFL Most Valuable Player, completed 17 of 26 passes for 229 yards and six touchdowns. Malik Brown contributed a momentumchanging 45-yard interception return for a touchdown. The Empire defense, featuring three players in the lineup for the first time, stopped the Cobras (3-6) four times on fourth down.

All of that sets up a meeting with secondseeded Columbus, which defeated No. 3 Orlando 61-43 Saturday night in the other semifinal. The Empire defeated the Lions twice in the regular season, 65-60 in the season opener at Albany and 61-43 in the penultimate regular-season game in Georgia. Columbus is in the NAL championship game for the third time in four seasons.

“It’s crazy because I was actually signed in Jacksonville, then they released me,” said wide receiver Phillip Barnett, who had three TD receptions, all in the second half. “That’s how I ended up here. With all the coaches leaving before the season started, and then coach Menas ending up getting the job, he just put the team together quick, in like a week or two. It’s great being able the come in, go 8-1 and head to the championship.”

Things started slowly for the Empire, who had scored 83 points in a regular-season victory over the Cobras. Carolina scored on the game’s opening possession, then stopped the Empire’s first drive at the 5-yard line. The momentum shifted in Albany’s 21-point second quarter. After the Empire took their first lead on a 32-yard pass from Grady to Darius Prince, one of three times that duo connected for first-half scores, Albany’s defense buckled down. Brown grabbed an errant Aaron Aiken pass at the Albany 5 and raced to the end zone to put the Empire ahead, 27-14.

“I just made a play on the ball,” Brown said. “I didn’t have too much on my mind. I gave up a play where a ball flew by my head maybe a drive before. I was telling myself, ‘When a play comes, I’m not going to miss it.’ The play came, and I just made the play.”

Albany scored on the opening drive of the second half to take its biggest lead, 41-21. Grady’s lone interception of the night helped Carolina get to within six early in the fourth quarter, but Aiken fumbled out of bounds as he was running into the end zone with 5:40 remaining, giving the Empire the cushion they needed.

“I call the season like an eclipse,” Menas said. “It doesn’t happen every day, and when it happens, it’s pretty special in the coaches’ careers and the players’ careers. I couldn’t be prouder of the men, and the coaching staff has done an outstanding job.”