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Playing with the ultimate chance to secure their postseason, the Vegas Knight Hawks started off its nuclear two-game homestand with a bang.
In a homestand that will feature the top three teams in the Western Conference started with a win for No. 2 Vegas over No. 3 Arizona. The Knight Hawks edged the Rattlers, 55-51, Saturday, June 22 from Lee’s Family Forum on Military Appreciation Knight.
The win secures a regular season series sweep for Vegas over its Western Conference rival. In Week 1, the team escaped with a two-point win.
“It can set you up to have home-field [advantage] throughout [the playoffs],” head coach Mike Davis said. “Ultimately, that’s the end goal right? The best part about that is we control our own destiny.”
Sitting at 9-3, the Knight Hawks will now prepare for a matchup of the West’s two best teams when it welcomes the Bay Area Panthers into Lee’s Family Forum Saturday, June 29. In the first meeting between the two powerhouses this season, Vegas came away with a 19-point win.
“We’re not worried about the record,” Davis said. “We’ve got to worry about one game at a time. Now we’re on to Bay Area.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. next Saturday.
Quarterback Ja’Rome Johnson sliced through the Rattler defense behind nearly 80 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. His fourth and final rushing touchdown came late in the fourth quarter from 45 yards out and netted his team its largest lead of the game at 12 points.
Additionally, he opened the quarter with a touchdown run on the first play of the final quarter of regulation.
Just before halftime, Johnson hit the end zone again to give the team a five-point lead heading into the locker room.
“When [the field] is open like that, I’m just thinking of what I’m going to do when I get to the end zone,” he said.
By the final buzzer, Johnson racked up 255 total yards of offense to go along with eight total touchdowns.
Half of those scores came through the air with three of them going to receiver CJ Windham. Two of those scores for the Powder Springs, Georgia native came in the first quarter of his five-catch, 102-yard outing.
“We have the best-receiving core in this league, we truly believe that,” Windham said. “We are the type that are not selfish, on any given night we can have our moment. I was blessed enough tonight to have my moment with three of them, a hat trick.”
It wasn’t all smooth for Johnson as he threw two interceptions, both of which came in the first half. Additionally, both of those interceptions came on back-to-back first half drives.
Johnson now has seven interceptions on the year.
“[Offensive coordinator Hurtis] Chinn told him those are two bonehead throws,” Davis said. “Don’t make two bonehead throws and it’s not as close as it was.”
Every time the offense needed a pick-me-up, the defense provided it. Defensive back Bryce Hampton made another goal line stop with his seventh interception of the season. Three of them have come at the goal line to kill an opposing team’s scoring drive.
“It’s an offensive delay of game so it’s pretty tough to say that we stopped them in the redzone, but you know it's 99 yards, in this case 49 yards to get in the end zone,” linebacker Gabe McCoy said. “We never really had that doubt. Whenever it’s a situation like that we call ourselves firemen [and] we gotta stop the fire.”
Late in regulation, defensive back James Ceasar possibly made the highlight of the night with a one-hand interception while shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rattler receiver. The game-shifting play also happened in the visiting team’s end zone.
“That just gives us energy man,” McCoy said. “Our main thing this week was trust. We do that and players make their plays and everybody does their ⅛ and that is just a part of the engine that just builds.”
McCoy was at the heart of most things in front of his Vegas secondary including a game-changing play just before halftime. He secured a sack on a 4th and 5 late in the second quarter.
That drive-stopping tackle would set up Johnson’s late half touchdown to give the home team the lead heading into halftime.
“Just them trusting in me,” McCoy said. “Nothing came easy, everything we work for is hard work with these last two years we struggled. Now we are all building off of each other – that’s one thing we do have here, we have great leaders here.”
On the Vegas’ offensive possession prior to that the team scored for the first time in nearly 22 minutes. A blocked extra point that was returned for a touchdown followed by an Arizona touchdown in the first quarter put the home team in a hole for the first time.
In total, the game featured eight total lead changes.
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