ArenaBowl XXXIII took play on Friday night at the American Dream Meadowlands entertainment and retail center in East Rutherford, N.J., with the No. 1 seed Billings Outlaws defeating the No. 2 seed Albany Firebirds 46–41 in a tightly fought match-up. The victory earned Billings its first Arena League title.
The Outlaws ended their season 9-1 while the Firebirds concluded the AFL campaign at 8-3. The title is the second for Outlaws head coach and defensive coordinator Cedric Walker and his first as a head coach. He was a defensive back on the 1997 Arizona Rattlers squad that captured ArenaBowl XI.
Outlaws wide receiver Duane Brown, who played in college for Indiana University of Pennsylvania, caught five touchdown passes from quarterback Isaac Harker, a product of Indiana State, and overall had nine catches for 125 yards.
Brown said he envisioned holding the championship trophy along with his daughter.
“That was the goal coming into this game—being able to have [my infant daughter Arabella]… watch me play and get this done, man, especially because it is my rookie year, you feel me?” he exclaimed to the Amsterdam News. “It was all new to me, but being able to get that done with my brothers, it means everything.”
The ArenaBowl is a product of the Arena Football League (AFL), in which all games are played indoors on a field that is 50 yards long and 85 feet wide, with eight-yard end zones to facilitate higher scoring and more offensive-oriented games than the NFL, where the field is 100 yards long and 53.3 yards wide, and has 10-yard end zones.
The game opened with a low scoring first quarter and the Outlaws leading 3-0. They took a 17-13 halftime edge into the locker room. The scoring picked up in the third quarter, as Billings started off the second half with a 36-yard touchdown pass from Harker to Brown to move further in front at 24-13 after the extra point. AFL rules provide teams multiple extra-point options after touchdowns: the traditional one-point kicks, as well as three-point conversions from the five-yard line and four-point conversions from the 10-yard line.
The third quarter ended with each team putting up 16 points as the fourth began with Billings still ahead 33-29. When Brown recorded his fifth touchdown of the game that saw him break a tackle for a long run to the end zone, it seemingly put the game away at 46-35 after the extra point. But the Firebirds weren’t done and scored a touchdown with under 10 seconds to go, yet failed on the subsequent four-point conversion.
The Amsterdam News will be back at American Dream for the Cup of Dreams, NYC Footy’s newest soccer tournament—a coed, five-a-side contest. Registration is open to players of all skill levels and is free for spectators. It will take place Saturday, July 27, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Visit NYCFooty.com for additional information.
