Gladiators set for home opener after big victory

Duke City shut down defending CIF champions in Texas last week

The Duke City Gladiators, fresh off the best defensive effort in their four-year history, will look for a second straight victory to open the Champions Indoor Football season when they play host to the Wichita (Kan.) Force tonight at 6:05 at Tingley Coliseum.

It’s the first of four consecutive Saturday night games at Tingley for Duke City, which has a 13-4 record in the building in league games dating to 2015.

Last week in Frisco, Texas, the Gladiators overwhelmed the defending league champion Texas Revolution, 36-12, sacking QB Brandon Crawford seven times. The 12 points given up was the lowest total in franchise history.

“I never saw a quarterback get beat up like that,” Duke City coach Dominic Bramante

said of Crawford, who once played for the now-defunct New Mexico Stars. “But we can’t get too high over this game. We’ll see how good we are this week against Wichita.

“Think about it. In our first game we played against the defending champions. In our second, we’re going to go against the team that won in 2016. It doesn’t get much tougher than that.”

Headlining Duke City’s defensive play against the Revolution was CIF Defensive Player of the Week Jayson Serda, a Manzano High/Eastern New Mexico alum. He had 12 total tackles, including 1.5 sacks. He also had a team-high four quarterback hits.

Matt Moss, a Gladiators newcomer at defensive end who was part of that Wichita title team in 2016, had two strip sacks and three other QB hits.

On offense, Duke City relied heavily on its aerial game in the past, but against Texas it was the infantry that scored each of the Gladiators’ five TDs, led by Antonio Bray’s two scores.

Featuring the running game was the game plan.

“We were too one-dimensional last year and our goal in the offseason was to recruit players who had that run capability,” Bramante said. “We wanted a more even run/pass ratio.”

Wichita (1-1), which was idle last week, is playing its third straight road game. In its most recent game, March 10 against the Dallas Marshals, the Force won 73-38. It had a 33-6 lead in the game’s first 11 minutes.