Piranhas’ Offense Doesn’t Meet Its Lofty Expectations

ANAHEIM —  Maybe it was simply a case of opening-night jitters, but this was hardly the start first-year Coach Mike Hohensee and the Piranha fans were expecting.

Hohensee came here from Albany, N.Y., where he developed a reputation for being the Don Coryell of the Arena Football League. But for most of Saturday night, Air Hohensee was grounded. The Piranhas struggled to a heartbreaking 33-32 last-second loss to the expansion New Jersey Red Dogs in front of 10,582 at the Pond.

The Piranhas did about everything they could to give the Red Dogs their first AFL victory, but they were most generous in the closing minutes. After linebacker Jai Hill gave the Piranhas a 32-30 lead with 7 minutes 41 seconds left, Ian Howfield hit the left upright with the extra-point attempt.

The Piranhas could have put the game out of reach with 14 seconds left, but receiver Shannon Culver dropped a pass in the end zone, his third drop of the night. On the next play, Howfield narrowly missed a 35-yard field-goal attempt that left the door open for New Jersey’s last-second heroics.

The Piranhas appeared to win the game a second time when kicker Steve Videtich had his 61-yard field-goal attempt blocked as time expired, but the Piranhas were penalized five yards for not having five players in a down position.

Videtich didn’t miss the next time. His 56-yard attempt split the uprights and cleared the 15-foot high crossbar by at least five feet.

“You don’t want to give a guy a second chance, he’ll usually kill you,” Hohensee said.

Hohensee didn’t agree with the call on Culver’s end-zone drop or the penalty on the blocked field goal. But he did agree that his team didn’t play well.

“We played well enough to win and badly enough to lose,” Hohensee said. “We had way too many mental mistakes and dropped passes.

“We’re not good enough to make all those mistakes. Mistakes were one of things that killed this team last year. It’s going to be a long season if we keep doing this.”

Lineman Sam Hernandez was one of the Piranha players who vehemently argued the blocked-kick penalty. But Hernandez also was disappointed with his team’s performance.

“It was horrible,” Hernandez said. “This is definitely something to learn from.”

The Piranhas’ most potent offensive threat Saturday was Howfield, who had field goals of 49, 28, 30 and 33 yards.

“We were out of sync all night,” Hernandez said.

Quarterback Ron Lopez spent much of the game running for his life. When he did have time, he either overthrew his receivers or was victimized by dropped passes, fumbles and penalties.

Two Lopez touchdown passes were nullified by penalties, one for an illegal formation, the other for two players in motion at once.

Lopez completed 18 of 37 passes for 226 yards and two touchdowns.

If not for the second-half push from the defense, Anaheim would have been in deep trouble.

The Piranhas trailed, 27-17, at the half but they held New Jersey to seven yards of offense in the second half.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t have won this for the defense,” Hohensee said.