Port City Chargers Win Thriller

It was another great night outside for football in Wilmington and if you missed this game fans you really missed a heart pounder. Even with the officials calling back 4 touchdown plays in the game and several other long passes and rushes, the Port City Chargers emerged with the 22 - 21 victory over the visiting Raleigh Rams, pushing their record to 5 – 1 for the season.

The score was 14 – 8 with only 11 seconds left in the first half and the RAMS receiver caught a very questionable deep pass in the end zone for a score to make it 14 all at the end of the 1st half. Head Coach Brian Friend said “The referees are just killing use with not knowing the rules." The coach continued, “4 touchdowns called back on us in the 1st half and then they let a touchdown stand with only one foot in bounds, everybody who watches NFL football knows you have to have 2 feet in for a catch………….they are killing us."

In the fourth quarter, the Rams put together a long drive resulting in a TD putting them up with a score of 21 – 14 with 7:21 to go in the game.

After the kickoff the Chargers had to go 70 yards for a touchdown. After a big 50 yard run by Desmond Jordan down to the 20 and an argument about the game clock stopping on an out of bounds play. Head Coach Brian Friend was ejected and given 45 yards worth of penalties. But that did not matter to Jordan and the Chargers because 2 running plays and a 55 yard TD pass from Charlie Ross to Montrel Jones made the score 21 – 20. Desmond Jordan ran in the 2 point conversion with a second and third effort to put the Chargers up 22 – 21 with 3:31 to go in the game.

The Rams were driving but the clock was running out on them with no timeouts left. The Chargers had the Rams 4th and 10 at the 40 yard line and had 12 players on the field which is only a 5 yard penalties but the Rams were given 15 yards and a 1st down at the 25 yard line. With a draw play bounced to the sideline for a gain of 2 yards the clock was set to expire with 11 seconds and counting, but wait the Rams call a timeout with 4.7 seconds left which should have been a 15 yard penalties and a required 10 second runoff the game clock which would have ended the game but the Rams were awarded an additional timeout much to the dismay of the Chargers and their fans. Thankfully in the end the Rams tried to kick a 23 yard field goal with 4.7 seconds left that was blocked by Corey Parker and Desmond Jordan to preserve the win 22 – 21 in spite of all of the breaks against the Chargers.

-Submitted by Port City Chargers

Desmond Jordan 25/251 yds 1 TD 2pt conversion

Brian King 5/85 yds 2pt conversion

Charlie Ross 4/8 112 yds 2 TD

Craig Gebhard 1/45yds 1 TD

Montrel Jones 1/55 yds 1 TD

Chris Raymond 1/12 yds

D’Andre Fasion 12 tackles 5 sacks

Cleveland Simmons 14 tackles

Sable Thomas 6 tackles 3 sacks

Mahmoud Kaled 6 tackles 1 sack

Corey Parker 5 tackles

Domonique Dixon 4 tackles

Darius Daise 1 INT

Anthony “Hollywood” Hayes 1 INT

-- Jesse Jones, CAPE FEAR SPORTS REPORT