RATTLERS ROLL
Arizona advances to the United Bowl in its first Indoor Football League season
A season that began at six-time defending champion Sioux Falls will end there for the Rattlers.
They punched their ticket to the July 8 Indoor Football League United Bowl with a 62-36 rout of the Nebraska Danger for the Intense Conference championship Saturday before a crowd of 15,038 at Talking Stick Resort Arena.
“I love it,” coach Kevin Guy said about returning to Sioux Falls. “We’ve got to finish what we started.
“They’re a great team. Coach (Kurtiss) Riggs does a great job with that program. We’ve got our work cut out for us. We’re going to enjoy the bye week and we’re going to get after it.”
The United Bowl will be played at 3:05 Arizona time at the place where the Rattlers opened a new indoor era on Feb. 17 with a 40-29 loss, getting outscored 19-0 in the final 20 minutes. The Storm (15-2) assured another title game
with a 66-32 rout of the Iowa Barnstormers earlier Saturday for the United Conference championship.
Since breaking off from the fledgling Arena Football League, the Rattlers (13-4), in their 25th year, started this new indoor era 1-3. But they picked up defensive help from linebacker Justin Shirk, got big boosts from a couple of homegrown offensive players, and found their swagger en route to winning their last nine games.
They return to Sioux Falls a much different team without that sense of uncertainty they had the last time, when they were playing with a rebuilt roster in a new kind of indoor game that has no nets and different rules.
“We feel much better,” said former Peoria High and Arizona State standout Jamal Miles, who returned a kickoff and missed field-goal try for touchdowns in the first half Saturday. “We’re a whole different team from the fist time we faced them. We’re jelling together now. We’re ready to go back and see what we can do.”
The Rattlers won five ArenaBowls, but it wasn’t until their third season in 1994 that they captured their first.
They’ll go for their first IFL title in their first year in the league with a roster that was mostly new, but with a coach who knows how to quickly reload and win titles. He led the Rattlers to three consecutive AFL titles from 2012-14, winning all of those away from home.
They seized control of history early Saturday when they didn’t allow a first down until 11:27 left in the second quarter and held the Danger (9-8) to negative-2 yards and two long field-goal tries that weren’t close in their first two series, as the Rattlers built a 14-0 lead.
After the Danger closed to 20-14, taking advantage of a Cody Sokol interception, the Rattlers rattled off 21 unanswered points in the final three minutes of the first half.
Sokol, a former Phoenix Desert Vista High and Scottsdale Community College quarterback, was 10 of 12 for 89 yards and three TDs in the first half. Despite having an interception returned for a touchdown in the second half, Sokol showed that he is ready to lead this team into Sioux Falls.
Guy credited “Rattler Nation” for generating so much noise he couldn’t hear himself giving plays to Sokol.
“Starting a roster all over again, putting in new systems on offense, defense and special teams, and then here we are today, just unbelievable,” Guy said. “I think it speaks for the people we have in our organization.”