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Stingrays suffer loss in home opener

2 min read

For fans of arena football, there is a new ticket in town: the Florida Stingrays of American Indoor Football League.

Unfortunately for the Stingrays, they didn’t get off to the start they had hoped, losing their home opener 48-35 to the Augusta Colts Saturday night at the Lee Civic Center.

“Starting an organization off from the ground up is tough,” said Stingrays coach Bryan ‘BJ’ Jernigan, “It’s going to take a football team to build this organization and we are going to have to win football games to get the fans out here.”

Jernigan’s solemn words came after the Stingrays loss, which dropped their overall record to 0-2. Jernigan, though, has much to be proud of.

The Stingrays trailed 25-0 at the half but rallied, getting the score as close as 41-31 by the middle of the fourth.

“The first half, we made a lot of mistakes, but this game is four quarters of football,” said Jernigan. “We came out after halftime, made a change at quarterback and we were a different team.”

It wasn’t just the change at quarterback. Fort Myers High alum Richard Washington caught three touchdown passes after halftime, and linebacker Chris Morant came up big on defense, making several big plays, stalling potential touchdown drives and forcing the Colts into field goals.

Morant played several years at fullback for the Florida Firecats of the AF2 before making the move to the AIFL.

“I made the move because I wanted to help the organization get started,” says Morant, “I came here to make a difference and help get this thing off the ground on the right foot. It hasn’t turned out that way so far, but we have a good football team regardless of our record right now.”

Morant added that if fans are willing to stick with the team, the future looks bright for the Stingrays.

The Stingrays return home April 5 when they host Mississippi.