Dan Raudabaugh celebrates after his franchises first win over the Arizona Rattlers.
It’s been a long time coming.
For the first time ever, the Philadelphia Soul can say they defeated the Arizona Rattlers, after Saturday night’s 65-58 win.
It didn’t end up being as easy as Philadelphia made it seem at times, jumping out to 17-point leads twice in the game. Arizona never gave up, and fought back to cut Philly’s first triple-digit lead to three points, and cut their second deficit in the second half to a single touchdown in the final minute of the game.
In the end, the greed of the great Arizona Rattlers, who have dominated the league for nearly half a decade, might have cost them their best chance of another impressive comeback when head coach Kevin Guy elected to try an onside kick after scoring two straight touchdowns to close the first half and open the second half.
At the time, the Rattlers were taking advantage of two straight possessions, which seemed to be the only way to slow down the Soul offense all night.
Dan Raudabaugh had been hitting his receivers, such as Darius Reynolds and Shaun “S.K.” Kauleinamoku all night.
Nick Davila’s offense wasn’t quite as in sync as they were during their four-straight Arena Bowl appearances from 2011-14, two of which were championship victories for the Rattlers over the Soul.
The Rattlers made some unorthodox mistakes which stung their team early, none of which affected their rhythm worse than Markus Smith’s fumble on Arizona’s opening drive which was recovered by Philly’s Sean Daniels.
The turnover resulted in S.K.’s first score of the night.
Two drives later with Philly up 21-7, the Rattlers faced a fourth-and-goal situation in Philly’s red zone, but Joe Goosby came up big to break up a scoring pass to turn the ball over on downs for the second turnover of the night.
Philly faced a similar situation on the other end of the field a few plays later, facing a fourth-down situation in the Rattlers’ zone, but Soul head coach Clint Dolezel elected to send Tommy Frevert out for his first field goal attempt of the season. The try was successful, putting the Soul up 24-7.
Than the game turned into a special teams affair.
Both teams traded onside kicks to end the half, with Philadelphia’s defense struggling with penalties all game which led to Arizona scoring the final points of the half to cut Philly’s lead to 31-21.
With the Rattlers getting the ball to start the second half, they came out of the locker room with a quick score to cut Philly’s lead down to three-points, and all of a sudden due to little fault of the Soul’s offense, a cruising game with a once 17-point lead was suddenly deeply threatened.
But cutting the lead to less than one touchdown wasn’t good enough for the Rattlers coach, who called the onside kick to try and steal a third straight possession.
The try was unsuccessful, as Philly’s Sean Daniels picked the ball up at the 13-yard line and returned it to the house to put the Soul back up by 10 points.
Guy’s decision for the onside haunted him on the next kick as well, as Anthony Amos was completely crushed on the kickoff on a hit from Goosby forcing a fumble on the return which was recovered by the Soul’s Phil Belton in Arizona territory.
Raudabaugh found Ryan McDaniel in the end zone moments later, and suddenly a wave of Rattler momentum was dashed by the greediness of Guy’s desire for one more possession early in the second half with Philly up 45-28.
With a higher yet similar score later in the game, the Rattlers tried a second run at stealing the game in Philly as they had done in all six meetings the franchises the teams have had throughout history.
Arizona scored three of the final five touchdowns in the game to cut Philly’s late lead to a single touchdown once again.
The game came down to a final onside kick, which was knocked out of bounds by a Soul defender to give Philly the ball.
The Soul struggled with calls from the officials all night long, with unsportsmanlike conduct infractions handed down and minor penalties putting the Soul in the bonus. And just when it seemed Arizona might have the chance to force a fourth-down to get the ball and tie the game or take the lead, it was the Soul have benefited from the biggest call of the game, when Arizona’s defensive back Alan Davis was penalized for a pass interference in the end zone to allow the Soul to run out the clock.
Raudbaugh finished the game completing 14 of his 21 passes for 223 yards, six touchdowns and zero interceptions, his best performance ever against the Rattlers.
Reynolds brought in 126 yards and three touchdowns.
The win was Philadelphia’s first ever over this Arizona Rattlers team that has been the biggest obstacle holding the Soul back from an Arena Bowl championship.
But now the Soul have proven they are legit contenders for the big ring this season.
The Rattlers had major injuries heading into the game, but no team is completely healthy at this point in the season.
If these two teams meet once again in the Arena Bowl, the Soul now have the 6-1 record lead over the 5-2 Arizona Rattlers, and also hold the tiebreaker. The teams will face each other again in Arizona next month before the playoffs, but the Soul have already shown their capability of beating the team many thought they couldn’t, especially if the possible Arena Bowl matchup would be held in our own Wells Fargo Center.
It was an impressive win for the Soul. It was a statement win. It kept Philadelphia just one game out of first place for the American conference, and they’ve shown they deserve to have the second best record in the league.
Now all they have to do is face the undefeated Orlando Predators next Saturday night in South Philly for first place in the league.
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