{"id":52394,"date":"2016-04-02T17:52:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T00:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=52394"},"modified":"2016-04-03T00:17:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-03T07:17:33","slug":"la-kiss-vs-jacksonville-sharks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=52394","title":{"rendered":"KISS Opens with a Bite, 64-39"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Donovan<\/a>

Donovan Morgan hauls in one of his three touchdown passes. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(Anaheim) – The LA KISS outscored Jacksonville 31-6 in the second half and went on to beat the Sharks 64-39 Saturday night to\u00a0kick off the 2016 Arena Football League season at Honda Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Donovan “Captain” Morgan hauled in seven catches\u00a0for 81 yards and three touchdowns including the\u00a0250th touchdown\u00a0of his career making him eighth all-time in the Arena Football League. The reception gave the\u00a0KISS a 14-13 lead after one. After the score\u00a0Morgan gave\u00a0the ball to KISS owner\/lead singer\u00a0Paul Stanley.<\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/a>

Nathan Stanley was stellar in his debut for the Kiss. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

KISS quarterback Nathan Stanley, no relation, completed 27 of 36 passes for\u00a0283 yards and five touchdowns\u00a0with no interceptions.<\/p>\n

The game was tied at 33 at the half but the KISS\u00a0forced the Sharks into three\u00a0huge turnovers and turned it into a rout in the second half scoring the last 24 points of the game.<\/p>\n

Down 14-13\u00a0Jacksonville answered with a\u00a033 yard touchdown strike by Tommy Grady\u00a0to Tiger Jones to regain the lead. Morgan hauled in an 11 yard TD pass from Stanley\u00a0but the Sharks responded with another Grady touchdown pass to Joe Hills.<\/p>\n

Fullback Rory Nixon rumbled\u00a0three yards\u00a0to get\u00a0the KISS even\u00a0but\u00a0former USC Trojan Andre Heidari missed the extra point.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville and the KISS traded touchdowns in the final seconds of the first half. Brandon Collins made a leaping catch of a Stanley toss for the KISS’ score. Both the Sharks and the KISS kickers shanked the extra points and the game was tied at 33 at the break.<\/p>\n

The KISS immediately grabbed the lead in the third quarter when Stanley connected with Collins on a 19-yard touchdown pass on their possession. The Sharks responded\u00a0when Derrick Ross scored on a one-yard run but again the extra point was missed. There was still\u00a03:23 left in the third quarter and that was the last time the Sharks scored.<\/p>\n

Morgan’s one handed grab of\u00a0a five-yard pass\u00a0in the corner of the end zone put the KISS up eight at the end of three.<\/p>\n

DJ Stephens then made the\u00a0play that turned the game.\u00a0He raced down the field on the ensuing kick off and when the ball came off of the net he was there to recover it\u00a0for the KISS at the four yard line. Nixon turned it into six points with a three-yard jaunt and just like that the KISS was\u00a0up by 15.<\/p>\n

Rayshaun Kizer then picked off Grady\u00a0at the goal line to deny Jacksonville a score.<\/p>\n

After a Heidari field goal Stephens came up big again\u00a0as he recovered the\u00a0KISS kick off in the endzone for a score to ice the win.<\/p>\n

Grady finished 22 of 33 for 279 yards\u00a0and four touchdowns for the Sharks with an interception.\u00a0Joe Hills was his go to guy with nine receptions for 151 yards and two touchdowns but it wasn’t nearly enough.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been an assistant coach for six years and this is my proudest moment as\u00a0a coach,” said first year KISS HC Omarr Smith. “I’m really happy and appreciative of all my players. They came out and stepped up and\u00a0answered the bell.”<\/p>\n

The opening night crowd was treated to a KISS concert at halftime as owners Stanley and Gene Simmons took the stage.<\/p>\n

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a\u00a0KISS\u00a0concert,”\u00a0said Nathan Stanley<\/p>\n

Next week the KISS will host the Arizona Rattlers on Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (Anaheim) – The LA KISS outscored Jacksonville 31-6 in the second half and went on to beat the Sharks 64-39 Saturday night to\u00a0kick off the 2016 Arena Football League season at Honda Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10811,11693,11695,11696,9909,2238,11692,11298,9181,9816,11651,9329,11316,11694,9662,8137],"class_list":["post-52394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-news-notes-around-professional-football","tag-andre-heidari","tag-arena","tag-brandon-collins","tag-dj-stephens","tag-donovan-captain-morgan","tag-honda-center","tag-jacksonville-sharksfootball-league","tag-joe-hills","tag-la-kiss","tag-nathan-stanley","tag-omarr-smith","tag-paul-stanley","tag-rayshaun-kizer","tag-rory-nixon","tag-tommy-grady","tag-usc-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52394"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52418,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52394\/revisions\/52418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}