Lightning to rest up after Typhoon

A few things are becoming more evident in the couple of days since the Shell Lightning edged the Tinian Typhoon by eight points at the CPA Airport Field on Saturday. For one, the Lightning are steadily improving. For another, the Typhoon are not to be taken lightly in 2005.

After generating just 97 total offensive yards during a miserable day in the mud and rain, quarterback Brian Hahn took the reigns off of the passing game to amass 133 yards through the air and 115 on the ground for a total of 248 yards of progress.

With 345 yards and 36 points through the first two weeks, the Lightning are second in the yardage category and tops on the scoreboard, and despite boasting a 2-0 record, Hahn said that his team has plenty more to do before they will be satisfied.

“It’s okay. You could see that the execution was a little bit lacking, but it’s a learning process, every game there’s some good things that happened and some other things that didn’t happen, but we’ll learn from them and we’ll build on that and next game try to put on a better performance,” he said.

With a couple weeks off, Hahn said that his battered squad will address their wounds and focus on the ways the Lightning can become the team they are capable of.

“We’re just going to heal up, work on our execution, mental preparation, be humble, work hard, and everything should fall into place,” he said.

One wound that needs to heal is that of hulking offensive lineman Will Hunter’s knee. After a year of sitting on the sidelines during the 2004 season, the big man has been making up for lost time by giving the maximum effort in the trenches. Player coach John Blanco said that Hunter should be back in time for their Saturday, Oct. 15, meeting with the Barbarians, and that they’ll need him.

“Will is out for about two weeks but he’ll be back in about two weeks. He’ll be in for the next game, but it’s kind of like based on what the doctors say. We’re 2-0, but I’ll be honest man, we could easily be 1-1. These guys came out hard and they fought us hard—total props to them. I dread actually going down there to face them because it looks like they’re going to bring it. They brought it today,” he said.

Former Tinian player Clas Ngeskebei echoed Blanco’s comments and said that while he enjoyed seeing his old team play well, he was happy to be on the winning sideline when the final whistle sounded.

“I hate to do it to my home team though—‘dey my boys and all, but I’m rolling with the new boys. It was just a great game,” he said.

Defensive stalwart Keith Nabors fired up his team with words of encouragement both on and off the field, but did more than pay lip service to the Typhoon cause with his pair of interceptions, six tackles, and a sack. The ever-looming linebacker even took it in turn to line up as a blocker on the offensive side of the ball to give his team a shot at tying the game toward the end.

In the absence of some of their regulars, Nabors said that the team had to focus on the fundamentals of the game and make some last-minute adjustments for the battle. Unfortunately, the lack thereof cost them the game in the end as the Typhoon tallied a total of 115 yards the wrong way on 17 penalties.

“It was a week of practice and preparing both defensively and offensively and I think that we did the things that we wanted to get done, but it just came down to penalties. It was just basic football. We had a couple of guys out, people sick at the last minute, people in the hospital sick with temperatures. I just found out about the personnel changes on the boat so I had to make adjustments in the ferry,” he said

Head coach Andre Winston offered a silver lining to the cloudy finish with some words of praise, but knows that his squad will have to buckle down if they plan to improve this season.

“Our team didn’t give up and we came back and scored—I’m proud of that,” said the coach.

With the Typhoon driving toward the end of the game to try and tie the game at 20 apiece, the Lightning sideline came to life chanting “Defense, defense” but Blanco said that he would rather not be in the position of holding off a comeback late in the game.

“We’re a pretty motivated bunch of guys. I guess they wanted to motivate the defense. I don’t know if cheering is going to help any. We just need to stick to some solid plays. In the end really I could care less about that, I’m more concerned about getting or team prepared for the next week,” he said.

The Lightning will remain idle this week as the CFL shifts to a single game format this weekend as the Express Electronics Eagles venture to Tinian to challenge the Typhoon under the lights this Saturday, Oct. 8, at 7pm.