Posts Tagged ‘Mahoning Valley Thunder’

The 1-5 Mahoning Valley Thunder know things will get better sooner or later.  Unfortunately, sooner might not be until next week as The Wilkes-Barre Pioneers (5-1) come rolling into The Covelli Centre this Friday.  The game is on a Friday to accomodate WWE Wrestling at the center on Saturday.  Maybe new coach Brennan Booth can talk the WWE’s Big Show into playing defense for his AF2 team.

Mahoning Valley is winless in this lifetime against Wilkes-Barre in six tries.  Brennan Booth is winless as a head coach at 0-1.  It would be a great victory to change both of those facts if The Thunder were able to find a way to win this game.  Blake Powers and Quorey Payne are the best shot if The Thunder might be able to pull the upset.

The two teams met on April 18 in Wilkes-Barre with The Pioneers posting an 80-43 victory over The Thunder. 

Kickoff is set for 7:05, see you there!

The Mahoning Valley Thunder dropped a heartbreaker to The Albany Firebirds, 50-41, in Albany Saturday night.  The Thunder, under new mentor Brennan Booth, came out firing and took a 12-point lead to the locker room at halftime.  The defense could not do much against Albany in the second half as The Firebirds scored on five straight possessions.  The Thunder could only muster 14 second half points. 

The loss lowered The Thunder to 1-5 and Albany improved to 1-5.  Mahoning Valley has not won a road game in almost two years. 

The combination of Firebirds QB Stephen Wasil and WR Johnny Butler combined for five touchdowns.  Wasil finished the game 26-40 for 278 yards and Butler caught nine Wasil passes for 154 yards.

Blake Powers was able to come back from a shoulder injury and finished the game 21-39 for a career-high 251 yards and five touchdowns.  Quorey Payne led The Thunder receivers with six catches for 94 yards and three touchdowns.

The Thunder return home this Friday night when powerhouse Wilkes-Barre rolls into The Covelli Center.

Talking to Mike Hold after this past weeks Thunder game was disheartening.  I felt bad for him because he could not seem to put his thumb on why the team looked like it was in a daze at times.  The Thunder management has fired Hold , 11-26 in two plus seasons, saying that it felt like the organization needed to make a change on the field in order to get things moving in the right direction.

Hold will be replaced by Defensive Coordinator Brennen Booth.  Booth has boatloads of experience coaching football, mostly in arena leagues and will serve on an interim basis.  The Thunder hired Andy Kelly, former Tennessee quarterback to take over as offensive coordinator.  Kelly was awesome as a Vol QB and ranks among the all-time best in their record books. 

The Thunder play at Albany this weekend.  The Firebirds are 0-5 this season and lost to The Thunder 44-34 in week one.  It seems like a logical game for Coach Booth to get his feet wet and hopefully secure a win.

The Tulsa Talons rolled through Youngstown and left with a convincing 66-30 victory over The Mahoning Valley Thunder.  The Talons got 9 touchdown passes from Justin Allgood and WR/KR Jeff Hughley racked up 216 all-purpose yards.  To make the loss worse, Mahoning Valley has some real issues at quarterback.  Starter Blake Powers jammed his shoulder and was forced to leave the game.  “I got hit pretty hard and it just sent a shock up my arm“, Powers told me after the game.  Replacement Davon Vinson was just plain ineffective the majority of the time he was in.

The game started promising enough as The Thunder took the opening kickoff and scored on a Powers 23-yard pass to Quorey Payne.  Tulsa jumped ahead 20-7 on three Justin Allgood touchdown passes.  With the score 20-7, Quorey Payne took a kickoff all the way back for an apparent touchdown.  The points were denied due to an illegal block in the back.  The big momentum shift really hurt The Thunder.  “Anytime a big play like that gets called back, it hurts us bad“, said Payne.

Tulsa blew coverage on a Powers to De’Tario Frederick 27-yard TD.  There was no defender 20 yards near Frederick as Powers got an easy one.  After an exchange of quick touchdowns, Derek Shorejs kicked a 32-yard FG with no time left in the half to cut The Talons lead to 38-23.

Tulsa scored to make the score 46-23 on another Allgood toss of 18 yards.  On the ensuing drive and The Thunder on Tulsa’s  three yard line, Powers tried a keeper to the left and got planted, shoulder first, into the Cortland Banks Field turf.  Powers finished the drive, but would not return with a bruised shoulder.  Tulsa scored the games final twenty points to make the final score 66-30.

When Davon Vinson took over for Blake Powers, the offense really looked out of sync.  Powers spent most of the first three quarters running for his life and really took a beating.  Vinson could not seem to do much to contribute to the offense.  He too, had a lack of protection, but when he could get a pass off, it was usually thrown poorly.  Vinson also coughed the ball up on The Talons one yard line.

Thunder Coach Mike Hold was disappoined with his teams performance.  “It is really disheartening to go through practice all week thinking we have a chance, only to come out like this.  We need to re-evaluate some things and keep trying.”  Coach Hold knows that his Thunder team can put forth a better effort and stressed how crucial turnovers can be when playing a team the caliber of Tulsa.  “You can’t get away with turnovers and mistakes against a team like Tulsa, it always ends up coming back to get you and we couldn’t stop them or move the ball.  We need better consistency on both sides.”

Tulsa Coach Mitch Allner praised the toughness of The Thunder saying that the score didn’t indicate how close of a game it was and that he was happy with the performance of his team.  “We were fortunate to create a few turnovers and capitalize on them when we needed to.“

The Thunder threw three interceptions, two to the Aaron’s Defensive Player of The Game, Pierre Thomas.  “Pierre made a couple of great plays for us tonight.  He used the schemes that we worked on in practice to have two very important takeaways for our team tonight”, said Allner.

The Thunder travel to New York to face The Albany Firebirds next weekend.   I will be writing another Thunder article this week about all of the great stuff that happens when play is stopped and the reaction the fans have to the giveaways and contests.  Look for my Albany preview here on Friday!

Mahoning Valley Thunder Coach Mike Hold thinks his team stands a better chance in week 5 against The Tulsa Talons than they did in week 3.  Tulsa blasted The Thunder in week 3, 79-35, in Tulsa. Coach Hold said, ” We feel more comfortable heading into this game because we saw them two weeks ago.  Now we have a good idea on what they like to do and how we match up, at the same time, they have a feel for our play calling and personnel.  They showed us that they’re an extremely physical team and their offense can beat you in a number of ways.  If we can limit the mistakes we made in week 3 we can be successful.”

In order for The Thunder to have a chance, the defense has to play better.  In the first four weeks of the season the defense has let every team score more points than the previous weeks opponent.  Tulsa (3-1) took it to Mahoning Valley in week 3, beating the Thunder 79-35.  Tulsa Coach Mitch Allner has a lifetime 29-7 record and has never lost to The Thunder.

I feel that QB Blake Powers will have a bigger week.  Last week was Powers first start and he played pretty good.  Powers threw for three scores and ran in another two.  The University of Indiana product was making his first start against Wilkes-Barre.  With this start look for Powers to play with more confidence and remain productive.

Powers favorite target is Quorey Payne who had 8 catches for 173 yards last week.  Payne is putting up great numbers and even returned a kickoff 50 yards to finish the Wilkes-Barre game with 351 all-purpose yards, a Mahoning Valley Thunder franchise record.  Payne has 435 receiving yards through the first four games and I am sure he will be hungry to keep putting numbers up.

The Talons are loaded with home grown talent boasting a roster with ten Oklahoma players.  Tulsa beat Iowa 58-31 last week.  Talons QB Justin Allgood was 32-49 for 148 yards with 8 TD against Iowa last week.  The Central Oklahoma product does a good job distributing the ball to Jermaine Landrum and Zac Edwards.

Mahoning Valley will need to step up their game to pull off this upset.  If the defense can play a little better and the offense can exceed production they have a good chance of winning.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 at The Chevy Center.

I am hoping to see a few Blake Powers to Quorey Payne touchdowns in the near future.  I received media credentials to cover The Mahoning Valley Thunder for this season.  I am excited about the opportunity and hope to give the team additional exposure through this website. 

I was a waterboy when Al Boggia coached the Youngstown Hardhats in the 1970’s.  Since then, the Youngstown area has only had great high school football, Youngstown State, and either Cleveland or Pittsburgh as an outlet for professional fandom.  What I like most about the local AF2 Thunder playing at The Chevy Center is that they are working hard to put people in the seats.  I see great promotions everywhere — everything from buy one-get one free, to family discounts (which include tickets, food, and refreshments), to entertainment besides the game, at the game.  It is an honest effort that I respect.

The Thunder play in the AF2 league.  Arena football is like a hamster race until you can get used to the speed of the game.  Players have to go both ways, almost like at Lowellville High School, but on a much grander scale.  I enjoy this brand of football and look forward to bringing my readers to better know and support The Mahoning Valley Thunder!

The Thunder has gotten off to a rocky start so far in 2009.  The squad fell to 1-3 this past weekend at the hands of The Wilkes-Barre Pioneers, who are 6-0 all-time against Mahoning Valley Thunder teams.  The team returns home this weekend for a 7:05 PM  Saturday game against Tulsa.  Hopefully The Cortland Banks Field inside The Chevy Center can produce some magic for the home team!