My heart goes out to Coach Chris MacKeown, his staff, and the players for Mahoning Valley.  If there were a betting line on this game in Vegas, Wilkes-Barre would have probably been 30 point favorites.  Mahoning Valley played a great game against a great team and came up short in the end, losing 62-47.

In a familiar scene, Quorey Payne returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown only to be called back for an illegal block.  That has to be the third or fourth time that has happened this season to Payne.  The Thunder took the ball and drove to a score when Brad Roach found CJ Brewer.  Nathan Palkovic missed the extra point, and the Thunder lead the game 6-0.

Wilkes-Barre returned the kickoff to the Thunder 8-yard line and scored on a Ryan Vena to JJ Outlaw pass on the first offensive play to give the Pioneers a 7-6 lead.  On the next drive, Roach was picked off on fourth down by Micheaux Robinson who returned it 15 yards for the Pioneer TD, and with the extra point kick the score was Wilkes-Barre 14, Mahoning Valley 6.

The Thunder responded on their next drive, cashing in on a CJ Brewer 1 yard run, and another Palkovic miss made it 14-12 in favor of the Pioneers. 

The two teams would exchange touchdowns several times as Ryan Vena was deadly accurate in the first half.  The Thunder kept responding behind Roach to Brewer and Payne scores all night.  At half, the Pioneers took a 35-28 lead to the locker room.

The Pioneers, who scored on 9 of 11 offensive possessions, took the second half kickoff and marched the length of the field capped off by a Vena to Outlaw strike putting the Pioneers up 42-28.  On the next possession, the Thunder again responded when Roach hit Quorey Payne in stride for a 45-yard bomb pulling the Thunder back to 42-34 as Palkovic missed another extra point.

After the teams exchanged TD’s, the Pioneers lead was 49-41 after 3 quarters. 

Vena hit Outlaw again at 9:39 in the fourth quarter to push the lead back to 56-41.  As things began to look gloomy for Mahoning Valley, CJ Brewer turned a modest gain into a monster play as Brewer sprinted up the field and got one of the best blocks I have ever seen by Jermaine Moye.  Moye’s clean hit knocked the helmet off of the Pioneer defender and when the block was shown on the replay, it was a better hit than I originally thought.

However, Vena hit Larry Kendrick in the end zone  for a 62-47 Wilkes-Barre lead.  Mahoning Valley got the ball back and drove to a first and goal, but Kendrick picked off a pass that was tipped to end the scoring.  The Pioneers ran the clock out to seal the victory. 

Coach MacKeown saw his team fight until the end, “We need to learn faster.  It’s a loss against a great team but it is still a loss.  This proves to everyone that we can play with anyone in the league.  I have a good feeling we can win our last three games.” 

Ryan Vena was 23-28 for 274 yards and 8 TD’s.  JJ Outlaw caught 6 Pioneer TD’s and ended up catching 8 balls for 126 yards.

For Mahoning Valley, Brad Roach had his best showing completing 21 passes in 41 attempts for 309 yards and 5 TD’s. Quorey Payne and CJ Brewer caught 15 of Roach’s 21 completions for a total of 240 yards.  They each ended up with three TD’s.

The Thunder head into the bye week at 1-12 with a 12 game losing streak.  They play next on July 11 in Peoria.