The Tulsa Talons rolled through Youngstown and left with a convincing 66-30 victory over The Mahoning Valley Thunder.  The Talons got 9 touchdown passes from Justin Allgood and WR/KR Jeff Hughley racked up 216 all-purpose yards.  To make the loss worse, Mahoning Valley has some real issues at quarterback.  Starter Blake Powers jammed his shoulder and was forced to leave the game.  “I got hit pretty hard and it just sent a shock up my arm“, Powers told me after the game.  Replacement Davon Vinson was just plain ineffective the majority of the time he was in.

The game started promising enough as The Thunder took the opening kickoff and scored on a Powers 23-yard pass to Quorey Payne.  Tulsa jumped ahead 20-7 on three Justin Allgood touchdown passes.  With the score 20-7, Quorey Payne took a kickoff all the way back for an apparent touchdown.  The points were denied due to an illegal block in the back.  The big momentum shift really hurt The Thunder.  “Anytime a big play like that gets called back, it hurts us bad“, said Payne.

Tulsa blew coverage on a Powers to De’Tario Frederick 27-yard TD.  There was no defender 20 yards near Frederick as Powers got an easy one.  After an exchange of quick touchdowns, Derek Shorejs kicked a 32-yard FG with no time left in the half to cut The Talons lead to 38-23.

Tulsa scored to make the score 46-23 on another Allgood toss of 18 yards.  On the ensuing drive and The Thunder on Tulsa’s  three yard line, Powers tried a keeper to the left and got planted, shoulder first, into the Cortland Banks Field turf.  Powers finished the drive, but would not return with a bruised shoulder.  Tulsa scored the games final twenty points to make the final score 66-30.

When Davon Vinson took over for Blake Powers, the offense really looked out of sync.  Powers spent most of the first three quarters running for his life and really took a beating.  Vinson could not seem to do much to contribute to the offense.  He too, had a lack of protection, but when he could get a pass off, it was usually thrown poorly.  Vinson also coughed the ball up on The Talons one yard line.

Thunder Coach Mike Hold was disappoined with his teams performance.  “It is really disheartening to go through practice all week thinking we have a chance, only to come out like this.  We need to re-evaluate some things and keep trying.”  Coach Hold knows that his Thunder team can put forth a better effort and stressed how crucial turnovers can be when playing a team the caliber of Tulsa.  “You can’t get away with turnovers and mistakes against a team like Tulsa, it always ends up coming back to get you and we couldn’t stop them or move the ball.  We need better consistency on both sides.”

Tulsa Coach Mitch Allner praised the toughness of The Thunder saying that the score didn’t indicate how close of a game it was and that he was happy with the performance of his team.  “We were fortunate to create a few turnovers and capitalize on them when we needed to.“

The Thunder threw three interceptions, two to the Aaron’s Defensive Player of The Game, Pierre Thomas.  “Pierre made a couple of great plays for us tonight.  He used the schemes that we worked on in practice to have two very important takeaways for our team tonight”, said Allner.

The Thunder travel to New York to face The Albany Firebirds next weekend.   I will be writing another Thunder article this week about all of the great stuff that happens when play is stopped and the reaction the fans have to the giveaways and contests.  Look for my Albany preview here on Friday!