By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Maybe it shouldn’t be any surprise that as one of the “new kids on the block” in Arena Football One this season, the Kentucky Barrels would show up for Sunday’s game against the Beaumont (Tex.) Renegades with a new starting quarterback – the third in the first five games.
And a new kicker. And a new return guy. Oh, and a new monster goal-line running back.
“We’re trying to figure this out,” Barrels’ coach Cedric Walker said with a laugh after his team’s 55-36 win over the Texas team. Although at 4-1 and second in the nine-team league, with the only loss on the road to unbeaten Albany and a win over a Nashville team also 4-1, the Barrels seem to have figured out one thing: how to win.
It’s something that player of the game Joe Powell, a former New York Jet and Buffalo Bill out of Portsmouth, Va., noted as he was carrying one of his two game balls. “One for my TD, one for my interception,” he said.
Did he have a favorite? The interception was in traffic, bouncing past the wall and out of nowhere. The TD catch was a 12-yeard stop-and-start slash past defenders who weren’t quick enough to get the angle on him.
“Nope,” Powell said. His favorite thing about Sunday was “that we won.”
His least favorite: Getting pulled down from behind by his waist-length dred-locks on a reception where he’d already gone for 20 and was heading to the end zone. “They wouldn’t have caught me,” he said. But no penalty. “They say it’s part of the uniform,” the officials told him of his hair. “I’m going to have to figure a way to tuck it in.”
But if Powell was one not-so-new part of this game, so was 285-pound defensive lineman Joe Golden, who led a pair of goal line stands that stopped the Renegades on the one – after four tries one time – and on the two another time in a game that could have been so much closer had the Barrels not made those stands.
“That’s the best,” said the 6-foot-4 Golden, whose job is to get to the edge before the blockers can and jam things up. “It’s almost as satisfying as a sack. And to do it all four plays inside the 2.” But equally satisfying for the Oregon State product was the sack of quarterback Andrew McBride for a safety that opened the scoring in a deciding 30-point second quarter for the Barrels.
The main newcomer here was Daryl Overstreet Jr., a rookie quarterback who’s been with the team for three weeks now except for his trip back to Fayette, Iowa (Pop. 1,256) for his graduation from Upper Iowa University (enrollment 3,000) the middle week. All he did in his first start was throw for five TDs and run for two more.
“He’s still a rookie,” Walker said, but the 6-2, 215-pounder from the Chicago suburb of Grays Lake, has “got a cannon and he’s physical,” Walker said, with a 4.4 time in the 40 that he displayed on one bootleg TD carry to close out the scoring after earlier carrying two defenders 10 yards as they tried to tackle him.
Gone also was speedy kick returner Dezmon Epps, a veteran cut for “not knowing his business,” Walker said, necessitating Powell to step in as well after already playing on both offense and defense.
Keeping the game a bit closer than it had to be, was the tough night for new kicker Henry Nell, the South African who was the league’s kicker of the year last season, according to Walker, but was coming back from surgery before his Barrels’ debut. He missed his first two PATs, then made up for it with a pair of two-point dropkick PATs from the 15-yard line before kicking his final regular attempt through the uprights to a big hand from the fans.
“He saved his job with those two kicks,” Walker said of the dropkicks.
Even minor injuries to star wide receivers Darius Prince (bruised ribs) and Jalin Marshall (neck) that caused them to sit out the rest of the second half didn’t slow down the Barrels as each veteran pass-catcher caught a long TD – Marshall from 40 yards out, Prince from 34.
Now the Barrels are looking ahead to their West Coast trip to Oceanside, Calif., next Sunday, May 24, followed by another road game at Minnesota the following Saturday, May 30.
SCORING SUMMARY
Beaumont Renegades 7 17 6-6—36
Kentucky Barrels 12 30 6 7—55
Renegades: Davis 4 pass from McBride (Hibbits PAT kick good)
Barrels: Prince 34 pass from Overstreet (Nell PAT kick fails)
Barrels: Overstreet 2 run (Nell kick fails)
Barrels: Golden sack of McBride for safety)
Barrels: Marshall 40 pass from Overstreet (Nell PAT dropkick good)
Barrels: Hollins 1 run (Nell PAT dropkick good)
Renegades: Davis 17 pass from McBride (Hibbits PAT kick good)
Barrels: Kimbrough 20 pass from Overstreet (Nell’s dropkick fails)
Renegades: Gandy 26 pass from McBride (Hibbits PAT kick good)
Barrels: Prince 15 pass from Overstreet (Prince run fails)
Renegades: Hibbits 20 yard FG
Renegades: Davis 2 pass from McBride (kick fails on fumbled snap)
Barrels: Powell 12 pass from Overstreet (Nell PAT kick fails)
Renegades” Davis 6 pass from McBride (pass fails)
Barrels: Overstreet 1 run (Nell PAT kick good)