Piranhas Fall Out of the Playoff Picture

The Piranhas’ season-long comedy of errors turned into a short-length film Saturday night--”The debacle at the Pond.”

The Piranhas hit rock bottom in a 49-35 loss to the San Jose Sabercats in front of an announced crowd of 10,117.

Not only did the Piranhas lose with turnovers and mental mistakes, they eliminated themselves in the Arena Football playoff race by falling to 2-8.

“It’s very frustrating,” Piranha Coach Mike Hohensee said. “In the next four weeks, we’ll find out what kind of football players I have on this team and who’ll be back next year.”

If Hohensee makes his evaluations off of Saturday night’s game, he’ll have a tough time finding anyone to play next year. If a player didn’t drop a pass, miss a block or a tackle, he probably got called for a penalty.

“We couldn’t catch the football, but when we did, we couldn’t hold on to it,” Hohensee said. “When we made a play on the kickoff, we were offside. We lost our composure. Individuals lost their composure. The mistakes are the same things that have plagued us all year.”

For the second consecutive game, the Piranhas failed to score in the first quarter. And for the second consecutive game, quarterback John Kaleo got off to a rough start. He threw two interceptions in the first quarter, though the first one should have been credited to Shannon Culver, who had a perfectly thrown spiral glance off his fingers and into the arms of Willie Culpepper. The Culver tip ruined a nice opening drive by Kaleo. Culpepper returned the interception 47 yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 San Jose lead.

Kaleo’s second interception came on a pass intended for a wide-open Bryan Reeves. But Kaleo saw Reeves break open too late and by the time his pass reached Reeves, San Jose defensive back Herschel Currie had come over to pick it off. The next time Anaheim got the ball, it turned it over again when Reeves fumbled in the open field after catching Kaleo pass.

The Piranhas stayed close and only trailed at half, 21-15, because San Jose’s offense wasn’t able to take advantage of the Piranhas’ gifts. San Jose quarterback Scott Wood, who played at Loara High and Rancho Santiago, was about as shaky as Kaleo in the first half.

“I had trouble setting my feet to throw,” Wood said. “I was rushing my throws and throwing a lot of errant passes.”

The Piranhas took their first lead with five minutes left in the third quarter on a Kaleo two-yard keeper that was set up by a Tommy Jones interception. But the lead was short-lived as Willie Culpepper immediately beat Delvin Myles on a 43-yard touchdown reception. Anaheim regained the lead, 32-28, on the last play of the third quarter on a Tim Brown one-yard plunge that was set up by three Derek Hill catches.

San Jose (5-5) outscored the Piranhas, 21-3, in the fourth quarter, getting all three touchdowns from receiver Steve Papin, who caught 10 passes for a team-record 202 yards and four touchdowns. By the end, even the fans were getting called for penalties. The officials penalized the Piranhas three yards when a fan stole a stuffed Sabercat from the Piranhas’ mascot ‘Piranha Man’ and threw it onto the field during a two-point conversion.