Gladiators come up short again

RIO RANCHO — Somebody was going to win their first Indoor Football League contest the evening of April 6 in the Rio Rancho Events Center.

Unfortunately for the Duke City Gladiators, it was the visiting Tucson Sugar Skulls, 56-49.

After an aborted onside kickoff to start the contest, Tucson (1-1) had the ball and scored on its first offensive play of the game and scored again on its last offensive play of the first half to break a deadlock at 28 and never trail again.

After that first Tucson touchdown, the Gladiators (0-3) came back to score on a 14-yard rush by Jeff Carr. Ernesto Lacayo, who had a dreadful game after being named the IFL Player of the Week after the previous game, missed the point-after.

Tucson quarterback Mylik Mitchell was elusive throughout the game, rushing for 58 of his team’s 91 net yards and scoring four TDs on the ground, and ran for the Sugar Skulls second and third touchdowns.

Trailing 21-6, Gladiators QB Javin Kilgo threw a 17-yard TD pass to Gourney Sloan, and Lacayo drop-kicked the ball through the uprights for a two-point conversion, bringing the score to 21-14. He followed with a rouge on the ensuing kickoff to make it 21-16.

Following another Tucson TD, the Gladiators scored back-to-back TDs: Carr on a 7-yard pass from Kilgo and Greg Dent Jr. on a 12-yarder, with Dent winding up in the seats. Lacayo missed PATs after both TDs, and the game was knotted at 28 — but not for long.

Tucson took the lead to keep with a three-play drive and a TD pass from Mitchell; the PAT was good, and intermission arrived 10 seconds later with the Gladiators trailing, 35-28.

Greg Thomas returned the bouncing second-half kickoff 42 yards to the end zone, but again the Lacayo kick went wide left. That made it 35-34, and the Gladiators could get no closer, yet seemingly were always within striking distance.

After a Lacayo rouge made it a 49-42 score early in the fourth quarter, Mitchell’s 4-yard run with less than four minutes to go made it 56-42, but a Kilgo-to-Dent TD pass and Lacayo PAT made it 56-49.

The Gladiators successfully executed an onside and marched toward what they hoped would be the game-tying or game-winning score (with a two-point conversion), but Kilgo was intercepted for the second time, and the Sugar Skulls ran out the clock.

The Gladiators hit the road for their next two games, at Northern Arizona in Prescott Valley on April 20 and in Las Vegas April 27.

Following a bye week, Duke City is home at 4:05 p.m. May 19 to face San Diego, and home again six days later to face the Arizona Rattlers. Those two contests are half of what is a four-game homestand, with Duke City playing Tucson again June 1 and San Antonio on June 8.