Little Rock, AR - The Twisters needed this win after dropping two in a row to those dreaded Oklahoma teams. This team has never looked the same after the loss of Rod Harper, but against the Dusters I saw a little progress in the receiving core with the addition of Aaron Fairooz (see photo above). Aaron caught 14 passes for 169 yards and 5 touchdowns. Also Cameron Kinard had 7 receptions for 91 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Kyle Rowley had a decent game with 28 of 46 pass attempts completed for 306 yards and 8 touchdowns. It turns out his counterpart Julian Reese was back under center for the Dusters and almost got a win for his old team. Amarillo came in with a 2-9 record but with the recent addition of Reese the Duster fans have seen a reason to get excited about their team again. Unfortunately for them it was short lived, after the Twisters pulled a close game out of their hats with a final score of 62-63.
The game was a back and forth battle most of the time. The Twisters won the toss and deferred to the second half. The Twisters went into the locker room at halftime with a 7 point lead with the score of 21 - 14. Amarillo however came out in the third quarter and out scored the Twisters 14 - 7. The fourth quarter was a thriller each team scoring at will almost and the Twisters winning as Amarillo scored with no time left on the clock and deciding to go for 2 points to win the game, but failed.
The game was marred however in the 3rd period of play by the Amarillo's Defensive Coach's constant bombardment of insults to our fans behind the benches. He's actions lead to the retaliation of heated exchanges between our fans and the Amarillo players and the Head Coach Ben Bennett. Three of the Twisters' fans were ejected from their seats after Coach Bennett screamed "Security! Security!" at the top of his lungs. The play on the field had to be stopped several times because of his tantrums.
I sure hope Coach Sig gets with the new guys this week and tells them that balls off the net are live and should be caught, especially on defense.
The Twisters improved to it's best start in franchise history 8-4 after 12 games and remained in first place in the Southwest Division. Rio Grande Valley is up next and the Twisters must travel across the dreary Texas plains to take on the hated Dorados.
