Duke City opens playoffs vs. Venom
Gladiators are 0-4 in Amarillo
The Duke City Gladiators will face a familiar foe tonight when they take on the Amarillo Venom in the first round of the Champions Indoor Football league’s South Division playoffs at the Amarillo Civic Center.
It will be the fifth meeting of the season between Duke City (7-5) and Amarillo (9-3), including the third in the Texas Panhandle. The topseeded Venom won the first three by a total of six points, but two weeks ago endured its most lopsided loss of the year when it fell to the fourth-seeded Gladiators 69-46 at Tingley Coliseum.
Duke City, which qualified for the postseason for the first time in its threeyear history, has never won in Amarillo, going 0-4.
“We’re going into a lion’s den,” Gladiators coach Dominic Bramante said. “We know how strong they are at home.”
Over the past three years, the Venom is 16-4 in Amarillo, including 5-1 this year.
The Gladiators enter the playoffs as the hottest team among the eight that qualified from the South and North divisions with three consecutive victories — against the three teams that finished ahead of them in the South standings.
Leading the way offensively for Duke City is QB Donovan Porterie, an exLobo who threw a leaguehigh 60 touchdown passes this season, including four last week in the team’s playoff-clinching home victory over Dodge City, 44-23.
Not only did the Gladiators play the roughest schedule in the league among playoff qualifiers (based on foes’ winning percentage) but they outscored their opponents by 150 points, the best differential in the 14-team league.
On defense, the Gladiators’ Jayson Serda, a Manzano High/Eastern New Mexico alum, averages a league-best 10.7 tackles a game.
Whereas this will be the fourth straight game the Gladiators will have played “with their backs against the wall,” it will be new for Amarillo.
“This will be the first time Amarillo will be in that position, so we know they’ll be giving us their best shot,” Bramante said. “It’s going to be a war.”
In a travel change, the Gladiators left for Amarillo on Friday morning and were scheduled to spend the night. That’s unlike the regular season, when the team traveled the day of the game.
“I want my guys rested for a game this important,” Bramante said.
The winner tonight advances to face the winner of tonight’s meeting between No. 3 Dodge City (7-5) at No. 2 Texas (7-5) . The league championship game would be the ensuing week against the survivor of the four-team North Division bracket, which has No. 1 Sioux City (9-3), No. 2 Omaha (7-5), No. 3 Bloomington (7-5) and No. 4 Bismarck (5-7).