One game.
That’s all that stands between the Philadelphia Soul and Arena Bowl XXIX.
The confetti will be sitting ready in the rafters of the PPL Center Sunday night, hoping to shower the fans and players to top off the season run that’s landed the Soul in the conference championship game for the fourth time in five years.
The opponent standing in their way is the same one they’ve faced in all four of those conference championships.
The Jacksonville Sharks are no stranger team to the Soul, and a few familiar faces on the teams have turned this matchup into the AFL’s most competitive standing rivalry.
And with a win on Sunday, the Soul could get a little revenge added on with a conference title.
While the Soul have had their hopes set high at an Arena Bowl berth all season and have followed them up with a tie for the league’s best record, the Sharks are in the midst of a similar run to their road to the Arena Bowl last season, when they upset the Soul in the conference championship.
The Sharks fired their only coach in franchise history Les Moss in mid-July, then went on to win their last two games of the regular season to finish the year at just 7-9 and third place in the American Conference.
The L.A. Kiss and Tampa Bay Storm didn’t put up much of a fight in those last two games against the Sharks, and they haven’t been exactly the toughest competition in the league this season.
But the Sharks road their win-streak to Orlando last weekend, where they faced the 12-4 Predators who were down to their backup quarterback Bernard Morris, the man who led the Sharks to a pair of conference championships in 2012-13. In a back-and-forth battle, the Predators scored a touchdown to tie the game as regulation expired, but missed the extra point attempt that would have won them the game, sending the teams to overtime.
Orlando got the ball to start overtime, and scored a touchdown on their first drive to take the lead.
However, Jacksonville responded on their next drive with a touchdown of their own, and rather than tying the game and putting the pressure on their defense, they elected to go for two and try to win the game.
A Tommy Grady pass fell incomplete, but the referees called pass interference on the play to give the Sharks another shot. Derrick Ross took advantage of the opportunity, rushing past a line of defenders seemingly untouched to complete the improbable upset and advance to the conference title game.
Both teams are entering the conference title game hot, as the Soul are winners of their last five games, and defeated the Tampa Bay Storm last week in the opening round of the playoffs 63-41 at the PPL Center.
The defense was the storyline in the win, forcing five turnovers, one being a James Romain interception off Jason Boltus. Justin Lawrence recorded two sacks on Boltus as well.
Raudabaugh threw for 224 yards and eight touchdowns in the win, as he has seemingly returned to the elite form we saw from him play the majority of the season early on.
If the Soul are going to defeat the Sharks, they’ll need near-perfect play from Raudabaugh and a strong supporting performance from the defense once again.
The Soul have split the two games they’ve played against the Sharks this season. Philly’s only home loss of the year came against Jacksonville in the home opener, where Raudabaugh struggled early enroute Jacksonville’s 59-41 win.
Jacksonville has won four of the last five meetings in this series, but Philadelphia got the best of their rivals in the last matchup in June. The Soul defense took over the second half on June 4, and Raudabaugh’s 21 completions on 25 attempts equated for six touchdowns and a strong Soul win in Jacksonville.
It goes without saying at this point that the players have strong feuds for one another, dating back to when the Soul beat up the Sharks in both the 2012 and 2013 conference championship games to advance to the Arena Bowl. The tension grew even stronger when the Soul let go of some of their greatest players in franchise history, Derrick Ross and Tiger Jones, who went on to team up in Jacksonville, and they have seemed to play their best games of the year against their former squad the past two years.
Despite Jacksonville’s struggles that have stretched through most of those last two seasons, they are definitely a dangerous team when the playoff race is heating up.
Tommy Grady is just barely the league’s leading passer with 4,495 yards, a hair above Raudabaugh’s 4,303 yards.
Grady’s favorite target, Joe Hills, leads the league in yards with 2020, as well as touchdowns at 58.
Both teams have the strongest run games in the league as well, as Ross has brought in 399 yards with 20 touchdowns, while Philly’s Jermaine Richardson has brought in 320 yards with 20 touchdowns.
On defense, Jacksonville’s Greg Reid is leading the league in tackles with 101.5. However, the Soul edge the Sharks overall on the defensive side of the ball, with Jake Metz leading the league in sacks with eight, and Tracy Belton leading the league with nine interceptions. Dwayne Hollis is just behind Belton, tied for the second most with eight interceptions.
Taking care of the ball, and making sure they take control of the ball on special teams will equate in a championship win for the Soul Sunday night.
There’s no need for any more motivation than Philly probably has, as they’ve sat back for almost one year to the date since the Sharks upset the Soul on the final play of the conference championship in their own building last season.
And to be honest, there probably isn’t a team that it would feel better to defeat to move on to the Arena Bowl.
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