The Philadelphia Soul are world champions of Arena Football.
Let that sink in a bit. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s been well-deserved by the faithful players and fans of this organization.
In a game that so many had counted them out in, traveling to the Snake Pit (part II) of Glendale, Arizona, against a team who historically did not lose at home, the Soul pulled off the upset that quieted the Kevin Guy-Nick Davila era of dominance in the AFL and entrenched themselves as one of the greatest in league history.
And when the Soul celebrate their championship parade and center city rally this afternoon, they know they are the best Arena Football team in the world.
It took all three phases of the game to earn the 56-42 win, with all three sides stepping up early on in the game.
Daris Reynolds was red hot from the first drive, opening the game’s scoring with a 16-yard touchdown to close a drive that faced some testy third downs.
Arizona made their first mistake of the title game when Rattlers’ running back Mykel Benson was pushing his way through a line of defenders at the goal line. The ball slipped out of his hands on the last second, however, where Dwayne Hollis found the gift and ran 50 yards back for a touchdown, putting the Soul up 14-0.
With the Soul sideline amped up, Tommy Freevert’s kickoff on the next play hit the uprights dead-on, dropping the ball on the field and into the grasp of Philly’s Tracy Belton, the season’s AFL Defensive player of the year, who recovered for the easy score to suddenly put Philly on top 21-0.
The Soul knew from their previous two losses in Arena Bowls to Arizona that to win the big game, they would need to limit their turnovers on offense and create as much pressure as possible on Davila, and both units did just that.
The game was not without any adversity for the Soul, however.
Raudabaugh was nearly lights out in the first half, but late in the first half when the Soul defense stopped the Rattlers on downs to give the offense an opportunity to go up by four scores heading into the half, the Soul offense couldn’t deliver and were stopped on downs.
Two straight Arizona touchdowns, coming at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second, put the Rattlers down by just a touchdown early in the third.
The Rattlers defense appeared to be coming alive, and got their next break of the game when Ryan McDaniel was the victim of a forced fumble in the final two minutes of the third quarter, giving Arizona another pair of straight-scores to tie the game 42-42 later in the fourth quarter.
It was a moment where the Soul could have laid down and failed, knowing they had blown an opportunity to run away with the match, and were sitting in a hostile environment where the home team had all of the momentum.
But the Soul never backed down.
Less than a minute into the fourth quarter, Raudabaugh found Shaun Kauleinamoku for an 11-yard touchdown, his second of the night.
Freevert gave the Rattlers hope in the game however, missing the extra point to keep Philly only on top by six points.
This gave Arizona and the league’s MVP quarterback, Nick Davila, the chance to march his team down the field and take their first lead of the night. And most teams would love their chances in that situation, with the three Arena Bowl championships Davila has threw on his resume the past five seasons.
But Jake Metz had a different idea in mind.
With Davila marching his team to midfield, he dropped back in the pocket to look for a receiver in the endzone, when Metz pounded his way to the quarterback and forced a strip, recovering the ball to give possession back to the Soul with under 10 minutes remaining in the game.
Four players later, Kauleinamoku caught his third touchdown pass of the night, and a two-point conversion from a Ryan McDaniel rush put the Soul up by two scores once again.
With the grasp of a dynasty run slipping away, the Rattlers had one more attempt at getting themselves in the game, hoping to score two quick touchdowns with just over a minute in the game.
With 48 seconds remaining in regulation, Davila aired a pass deep into the endzone intended for his receiver Anthony Amos, but James Romain read Davila perfectly and intercepted the ball in the endzone to put the championship on ice for Philadelphia.
When Raudabaugh’s offense ran out the clock and after final play was snapped, the Soul bench barricaded the field as a weight had been lifted off their shoulders. They finally put away the Rattlers in the championship game.
In a fitting frame, assistant coach Phil Bogle, who caught the game winning catch for Philly in Arena Bowl XXII, hugged head coach Clint Dolezel with tears in his eyes. Raudabaugh made his way through his teammates with what had to be one of the biggest smiles of his life, making his way toward Dolezel, capping off an amazing run the two have went through the past five seasons in Philadelphia.
Shaun Kauleinamoku, the game’s MVP winner, grabbed a Hawaiian flag and spread it across his shoulders as he celebrated across the field.
The Soul defeated the Rattlers in all three phases of the game, holding an Arizona offense that averaged 42 points per half to that in the entire game.
They did so against the hardest team to beat, in the hardest place to win. But they prevailed.
They quieted the critics, earned their spot in history and quieted the past.
They quieted the critics, earned their spot in history and quieted the past.
Raudabaugh, who had the knock of not playing well in the biggest of games, proved to be the better of the two quarterbacks with no turnovers in an Arena Bowl for the first time in his career. Davila could not live up to the hype of an Arena Bowl at home, throwing two interceptions in a game where his team lost by two scores.
The championship cemented Raudabaugh and Dolezel’s legacy in the history of both the franchise and Philadelphia sports. The two have brought us on a remarkable ride since both joined the franchise under Doug Plank in 2012, and the team has been one of the most dominant in the league even through Dolezel’s takeover in 2013.
Though they struggled in Arena Bowl XXV and XXVI, the losses made them stronger and hungrier, which equated to the second championship in franchise history this year.
And when you become a champion, you are a champion for life, and that’s what this entire team has become.
Enjoy every bit of it you can Soul fans. This was arguably the greatest season in Soul history, and we were treated to one of the greatest Arena Bowls in league history. And at the end of the day, your Philadelphia Soul are champions of the world.
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