St. Louis played the Arlington Renegades on Saturday, April 19th and this game was anything but a miraculous rising on Easter weekend. St. Louis started slow and ended slow after having to rely on their 2nd string quarterback after QB1 Manny Wilkins was injured a little over 2 minutes into the game. The nature of his injury is unclear at the moment but some believe that he tore his Achilles tendon after dropping back for a pass.
As for the rest of the game though, it was just a showcase for Luis Perez and the Arlington Renegades offense against the St. Louis defense and the inefficiency from Max Duggan to get anything started for the Battlehawks the rest of the game. To start the game, Arlington recovered the fumble from Manny Wilkins and returned it for a touchdown complete with a two-point conversion. St. Louis gets the ball back but could only respond with a field goal. Arlington gets the ball then, thankfully, has to punt the ball away. St. Louis can now have a chance to have two unanswered scores and bring the game back. Unfortunately, St. Louis’s wide receiver Jahcour Pearson would fumble the punt return and Arlington would recover at the STL 42-yard line. This would result in another Arlington touchdown and two-point conversion to make the game 16-3 in just the first quarter.
The next two quarters were lackluster as the offenses were in a deadlock against each other’s defenses. The most points that would be scored during this would be a field goal on the side of STL to lessen the difference to 16-6. This would quickly turn around though as Arlington’s final drive of the third quarter would get intercepted by St. Louis Willie Harvey for a pick 6 to make the score 16-15 and making it seems possible again that the Battlehawks could walk away with a win.
The fourth quarter is now here and Arlington has possession. They take full advantage of early possession by regaining a sizeable lead with a touchdown to now make it 22-15. However, it now goes back to being a lackluster series with the next four drives having to be punted away. It is only with 33 seconds left in the entire game we get another play of note and that is a Max Duggan interception for a pick 6 to finally seal the game away with a 30-15 scoreline and a second Battlehawks loss in a row.
Now I do believe the Battlehawks suffered a mental set back with losing their main field general so early in the game, but also in the middle of their season while trying to recover from their first loss. While this game was very lackluster and downright painful to watch if you are a St. Louis fan, we should try to find a silver lining in the fact that this was Max Duggans first full game. It was not a impressive performance but it can work as a baseline to grow and to possibly bring St. Louis back in the power rankings and on the official rankings. I may be delusional and biased, but I do believe we have more life than this and can turn this around.
The St. Louis Battlehawks play the Michigan Panthers next on Saturday, April 26th at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, MO and available to watch on the ESPN network.
