Gladiators aim to bounce back vs. Texas

Duke City lost in shocker last week

The Duke City Gladiators (3-1) will be looking to rebound from last week’s staggering loss to archrival Amarillo when they meet the Texas Revolution (0-4) at 6:05 tonight at Tingley Coliseum in a Champions Indoor Football game.

The game is a rematch of the Gladiators’ season opener, when they won at Texas, 36-12. It’s the only one of the Revolution’s four losses in which it didn’t hold a fourth-quarter lead.

For Duke City, tonight’s game comes seven days after it squandered a 49-43 lead with 1 second left on a 17-yard pass from Amarillo QB Nate Davis to Raymond Johnson, who made a one-handed snare in the end zone. Only 34 seconds earlier, the Gladiators had rallied to go in front on a 1-yard run by QB Caleb Holbrook, one of eight lead changes in the game.

Despite the dramatic turn of events, Gladiators coach Dominic Bramante said it didn’t take his team long to steer its focus to this week’s game.

“We were over (the loss) by the next morning — not even that long,” he said in a phone interview Friday. “But when you turn the ball over five times and they don’t have any, and then they march down the field and score with a second left, it was kind of a shocker.”

The loss dropped the Gladiators to a game behind Amarillo (4-0) in the South Conference with eight games remaining in the regular season.

Bramante will be going against a familiar adversary when Victor Mann returns to the Revolution as head coach. He guided Texas to the CIF championship last year before leaving to be head coach/general manager of the CIF’s Omaha Beef.

He left that assignment two months ago, though, because of family considerations. He retook the reins of the Revolution this week.

“They’re loaded,” Bramante said of the Revolution. “They had a lot of transactions this week and just brought in a lot of really good players.” NEXT HOME GAME: Tonight’s game is the fourth straight the Gladiators are playing at Tingley. Their next four outings will be on the road in rematches vs. Amarillo, Dallas, Wichita (Kan.) and Texas. In the mix is a bye May 12.

Duke City’s next home game will be May 26 against Amarillo.