Two weeks after a season opening victory in Orlando using replacement players, and coming off a week 2 bye, the Power finally got their first chance to show the fans what they could do at full strength. After their 84-59 loss to the Philadelphia Soul, the Pittsburgh Power still have a lot of work to do.
Turnovers were the story of the game for both teams. Both teams lost three fumbles, and Pittsburgh lost the interception battle 3-2. The Power also lost the fourth down conversion war too going 0 for 2 in that department.
Despite all of the momentum killing mistakes, Pittsburgh hung in there tight with the Soul and you started to think they might steal one. Unfortunately, the mistakes just kept coming.
Quarterback Bill Stull seemed to outplay his Philly counterpart well into the fourth quarter before he was forced into desperation mode. He finished the day 26 of 42 for 299 yards, 6 TD's and 3 interceptions. One of the picks was as he was being hit from behind. He failed to connect twice on fourth down overthrowing his receivers badly.
Randy Hymes stepped up in this game with 7 catches for 112 yards and 2 TD's. Mike "The Joystick" Washington also caught 9 passes for 80 yards and a pair of scores.
Despite the 84 points on the scoreboard, the Power did a very good job defensively of containing the Soul outside of Donovan Morgan. John Green had a huge interception but unfortunately fumbled near the goal line to negate a crucial six points. Justin Parrish returned a Dan Raudabaugh fumble for six the other way. Anytime you get five turnovers in the AFL you should win comfortably, but alas this wasn't the case Friday night.
Rookie kicker Collin Wagner had a rough AFL debut missing three extra points, plus one attempt was returned for a two point conversion the other way causing another five point swing towards Philly.
Overall the Power just weren't able to capitalize on the chances the Soul were giving them. We saw a lot of the same out of the New Orleans Voodoo last week in a narrow 63-62 loss to this same Soul team.
Perhaps some more practice with the team will help Bill Stull get a better chemistry going with his teammates.
Pittsburgh travels to Milwaukee on Thursday March 29th for a big early season divisional matchup.