Piranhas Locate Power Source

The farcical comedy that has become the Anaheim Piranhas reached new heights Thursday night at the Pond.

Two fumbles and an interception on their opponent’s goal line, a 20-minute power outage with 49 seconds left in the game, highlighted by the announced crowd of 10,790 dancing to the “Hokey Pokey” of the 90s, “Macarena,” and the topper. . .the Piranhas blowing a 21-point lead to San Jose only to rally and win, 39-36, in the closing seconds to break a three-game losing streak.

“We had it all the way,” Piranha Coach Babe Parilli said, chuckling. “Never a doubt. This game should have been over in the third quarter. I hope this will build our character and make us better. We had to have this game.”

But for the fourth consecutive week, the Piranhas (8-3) played as though they wanted their opponent to win. Anaheim’s troubles in the red zone are becoming so severe that a member of its front office groaned, “Uh-oh,” when Piranha receiver Adrian Jarrell was tackled at the San Jose one in the third quarter.

Sure enough, on the next play quarterback Scooter Molander fumbled while trying to sneak across the goal line. With the Piranhas clinging to a 31-30 lead late in the fourth quarter, fullback Kevin Carroll fumbled a handoff before he crossed the goal line. San Jose (5-6) recovered and eventually scored on a nine-yard run by fullback Tom Petithomme to take a 36-31 lead with 39 seconds left.

Fortunately for the Piranhas, they didn’t have to go 100 yards for the game-winning touchdown, or worse yet, one yard.

“In Arena Football, it’s easier to score from the 20 than the goal line, and the way we played tonight, it was best we didn’t get down there,” Molander said.

After hitting receiver Nathan Burchette over the middle for 16 yards, Molander found Jarrell on a slant route for a 20-yard touchdown pass with 20 seconds left. Ian Howfield drop-kicked the extra point to give the Piranhas a 39-36 lead.

Oddly enough, Jarrell, the league’s third-leading receiver, had been virtually ignored all night. He came into the game with 73 catches but had only one reception before his game-winning grab.

“I had a tough time tonight,” he said. “I had to play my role as a decoy. They were double-teaming me. I had to play hard all night and when my chance came, I took advantage of it.”

Jarrell beat San Jose defensive back Kip Texada on his scoring catch. Texada had intercepted a Molander pass on the goal line in the first half.

Jarrell admitted there is nothing perfect about his team’s goal-line offense, but he didn’t want to over analyze the point.

“I’m not even going to talk about it,” he said. “But you can bet we’re going to be spending a lot of time on it this week.”

Parilli confirmed that Jarrell had won his bet.

“Everybody has trouble down there but we have the most,” he said. “But if we don’t score it, we shouldn’t be fumbling all the time.”

If the Piranhas continue to self-destruct on the goal line, they might want to start looking for another head coach. Parilli, looking worn out and mentally exhausted, said, “We can’t keep putting ourselves in this position. I don’t want to go through this again.”