{"id":54068,"date":"2016-07-16T18:48:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T01:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=54068"},"modified":"2016-07-17T00:49:30","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T07:49:30","slug":"la-kiss-vs-cleveland-gladiators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=54068","title":{"rendered":"KISS Hits .500 with Win over Gladiators"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DJ<\/a>

DJ Stephens had four touchdown catches to lead the KISS offense (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(Anaheim) – The KISS led by 21 points midway through the fourth quarter\u00a0and then had to hold\u00a0to survive a 63-61 win over Cleveland Saturday night before\u00a08,069 at Honda Center. <\/p>\n

With the victory the KISS improved to a .500 record at 7-7 on the season\u00a0and\u00a0can earn a home game in the first round of the playoffs if they win just one of\u00a0their\u00a0last two games.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t easy though by any stretch for LA. Leading 49-28 with 7:56 left, the Gladiators (7-8) staged a furious rally and almost pulled out a win.\u00a0Cleveland recovered two onside kicks including\u00a0one that Nick Seither returned 12 yards for a score to cut the lead to 56-54 with one minute left.<\/p>\n

Arvell Nelson also fired three\u00a0touchdown passes to Quentin Sims\u00a0of 41, 14 and 19 yards in the fourth quarter and ran one in himself from a yard out.<\/p>\n

The game wasn’t secured for the KISS until Donovan “Captain” Morgan\u00a0recovered\u00a0an onside kick\u00a0following Nelson’s last TD strike to Sims with\u00a013 seconds left\u00a0and LA\u00a0ran out the clock.<\/p>\n

Nelson finished\u00a0with 332 yards passing completing 21 0f 31 with six touchdowns and one interception for Cleveland. Sims had 12 catches for 197 yards and\u00a0five touchdowns. Nathan Stanley, who fired three touchdown passes in the fourth quarter to help keep Cleveland at bay, completed 25 of 37 for 317 yards and eight touchdowns for the KISS.\u00a0Morgan caught three TD passes and DJ Stephens four.<\/p>\n

Nelson threw\u00a0touchdown passes to Sims and Collin Taylor and ran for one himself as Cleveland took a 21-14 lead after one quarter.\u00a0Stanley\u00a0countered with a\u00a0pair of touchdown passes to\u00a0Morgan –\u00a0both from\u00a0six yards out.<\/p>\n

Stanley connected\u00a0with offensive lineman Colin Madison for a four-yard score to get the KISS even in the second quarter but\u00a0the Gladiators responded with a Nelson TD strike to Sims for seven yards to\u00a0go back up by seven.<\/p>\n

Stanley hit\u00a0Stephens, who just did get into the endzone in the right corner on an 11-yard TD toss\u00a0with three seconds left in the half to tie it at 28.<\/p>\n

Stanley capped\u00a0a drive with a one-yard touchdown plunge to open the third quarter\u00a0to give the KISS their first lead of the night. Then the defense stopped\u00a0Cleveland on downs.<\/p>\n

Stanley found\u00a0Stephens again for a nine-yard strike to put the KISS up 42-28.<\/p>\n

The KISS again clamped down on the\u00a0Gladiators on downs and then the Stanley to Stephens connection clicked again\u00a0for a touchdown and\u00a0after a 21-0 second half run the KISS was\u00a0up\u00a049-28 and looked to be cruising.<\/p>\n

But the Gladiators stormed back\u00a0until finally being quieted\u00a0by Morgan’s recovery.<\/p>\n

“Our process is we’re trying to become a competitive football team. We’re growing,” said KISS head coach Omarr Smith.\u00a0“DJ (Stephens) had a great game.\u00a0Sometimes defenses will\u00a0try to take Donovan (Morgan) away\u00a0so DJ stepped up.\u00a0We talk about the whole growth process. A couple of weeks ago\u00a0DJ had a bad game and we talked about how we need him as a football player and to grow.\u00a0He did that tonight.”<\/p>\n

The KISS has two games remaining\u00a0but both of them are on the road against Jacksonville and Portland.\u00a0The win over Cleveland gives them the tie breaker should the teams finish with the same record.\u00a0One win will secure a home game in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

“I think we all feel pretty strong about it.\u00a0We’ve been coming together a lot more as a team and working together as a team. We’re pretty confident. I think\u00a0we’re going to get this done.” Stephens said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (Anaheim) – The KISS led by 21 points midway through the fourth quarter\u00a0and then had to hold\u00a0to survive a 63-61 win over Cleveland Saturday night before\u00a08,069 at Honda Center.<\/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":[536,12067,9614,11696,9909,2238,9181,9816,11651,12068],"class_list":["post-54068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-news-notes-around-professional-football","tag-arena-football-league","tag-arvell-nelson","tag-cleveland-gladiators","tag-dj-stephens","tag-donovan-captain-morgan","tag-honda-center","tag-la-kiss","tag-nathan-stanley","tag-omarr-smith","tag-quentin-sims"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54068","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=54068"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54084,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54068\/revisions\/54084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}