WEEK 5 - GRIFFINS VS. BALLAS

The Carol Stream Ballas made their first appearance in the heavily popular CFL on October 19th 2002.  In their first meeting they were scheduled to take on the veteran CFL squad of the Carol Stream Central Griffins.  According to www.cfl.4mg.com, the Ballas were the favored team for the victory.  The game got off to a rough start for the Griffins, who won the toss, and elected to receive.  Rookie quarterback Matt Anklam making his second start, faced a tough Balla defense.  After two consecutive drives of leading the Griffins down field, Matt threw two interceptions near the end zone.  Matt threw some nice passes though, hooking up with veteran Dave Hennessey who had another big game. The first interception led to the go ahead score for the Ballas.  The other interception was picked off by Luke Adams, a former CFL Pro Bowler, and taken 105 yards for the score. This was the longest interception return in CFL history. The score was quickly 14-0 Ballas over Griffins.   This forced the Griffins to bring in rocket-armed ultraback Chris Benak.  Chris was abruptly put in the drivers seat, and took advantage of the tired Balla defense.  Hooking up with speedsters rookie Tony Dieppa, and veterans Chris Hennessey and Dave Hennessey, Benak was able to shift the momentum on the Griffins side.  The Griffins came back, and at halftime the score was Griffins 42, Ballas 28.  After the break, the Ballas came out with a fury.  They went on a 21-0 run with short passes to Schluke Adams, Zach Adams, and Eric Hansen.  These short passes were a guaranteed first down almost every time.  Before you knew it the Ballas had taken a 49-42 lead.  The Griffins finally came back after Benak, who had suffered a hand injury, found his groove.  He was remarkably driving his squad down field when Zach Adams came out of nowhere and made the biggest play of the game; an endzone interception. "Zach's interception was the biggest play of the game for us," said Luke Adams.  Zach's interceptins helped propel the Ballas to within one score of clinching the win. However the Griffins would not let go. Benak completed passes to Anklam, Lopez, Dieppa, the Hennessey Bros, Maningas and Malizzio as they marched down field once again. Eventually the score was Ballas 63, Griffins 54. The Ballas looked to be ready to put the game away when rookie Josh Hardin completed passes to all his recievers. Hoffrage, Welch, Hansen, Martin and the Adams boys all pitched in. However, the rookie QB made a crucial mistake when he launched the ball towards the endzone to for the win, and fell short when the ball ended up in the hands of the Griffin's Chris Hennessey. After the interception and a Benak to Malizzio TD, the Griffins were right back in it, making the score 63-63. But, the power of the Ballas was too much for the Griffins to overcome, as they finally punched in the game winning score. This was definately one of the greatest contests in CFL history.

POST GAME INTERVIEWS

"Today's game was a hard fought victory and we came out of it with many things we need to work on for next week, we're going to take it one game at a time.  I really liked the effort we showed throughout the game and how we were able to make that second half comeback behind spectacular interceptions from Zman and Ryan, Zach's interception was definitely the biggest play of the game for us. We gotta give a lot of respect to the griffins for giving us one hell of a game, and were looking forward to next week."  -- Luke Adams #56 - Ballas WR and Captain.                

"The Ballas are an excellent team, no doubt about it.  We are just so upset that we could have won the game, despite the papers and website saying we had no chance.  I single-handedly lost the game for the Griffins.  The job was put into my hands to throw touchdowns; instead I threw two end zone interceptions."  -- Chris Benak #2 - Griffin QB and Captain.

"We had a horrible start to this game, yet I knew the team would not quit.  Everyone pitched in, and me mounted and excellent comeback.  Although, we have to learn to carry our momentum through the halftime break, we just couldn't hold on.  I am proud of my teammates they played great, but there are no moral victories in CFL."  -- Dave Hennessey #10 - Griffin WR and Captain.

Well to start out the summary, we started out kinda slow but we redeemed ourselves wiht a huge pick and other turnovers which turned the whole game around, im gald to say im on the ballers squad we have a great team and so does everyone else best of luck to u guys. -- Zach Adams - Ballas wide reciever & captain # 84

FINAL SCORE: BALLAS 70, Griffins 63