Grizzlies close out inaugural season tonight

Published Saturday, June 28, 2008

FAIRBANKS — With a last place record of 2-11 in their first season, the Fairbanks Grizzlies know they’re not going to be involved in the Intense Football League playoffs.

They know, too, that tonight at the Carlson Center, they have a chance of denying the Alaska Wild of their first postseason experience.

“We’re looking forward to being the spoiler, we’re looking forward to evening up the series with our instate rivals,’’ Grizzlies center Josh Craft said after Friday night’s one-hour practice at the Carlson Center. “We’re looking forward to playing one more game of football this season. All the other perks are great, but we’re here to play football.’’

The Wild may have an idea about their postseason fate by the time tonight’s regular season finale at the Carlson Center kicks off at 7:05, as two games in Texas earlier today could determine if Alaska plays for another week or joins the Grizzlies in putting their equipment away for the season.

Alaska and Katy share 5-8 records, but the Wild sit in sixth place and the Ruff Riders in seventh place because of IFL tiebreaker rules.

If Katy loses at Odessa in their 4:10 p.m. ADT game, the Wild make the playoffs regardless of how they fare in the Carlson Center. Should Katy win, the Wild will need to beat Fairbanks and have the fifth-place Frisco Thunder (6-7) fall in their 4:05 p.m. ADT game at San Angelo.

And wins today by Katy and Frisco will eliminate the Wild from the playoffs.

The Grizzlies aren’t necessarily becoming Ruff Riders and Thunder fans today, but they want to end the season with a win after two losses in a row, even the season series with Alaska at 2-2 and hand the Wild their second straight defeat and seventh in eight games.

The Grizzlies downed the Wild 33-27 on June 7 at the Carlson Center after Alaska thumped Fairbanks 64-20 at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage on April 10 and overwhelmed the expansion franchise 88-12 in the season opener in Sullivan on March 6.

“We’re going in there hungry because we took two bad beats at the hands of these guys, and we want to pay them back,’’ Craft said. “I know a lot of the (Grizzlies) guys are from out of state, but there’s some core guys on the team that really feel the rivarly, and I know we want to come out here and show Fairbanks proud.’’

The Wild took a bad beating last Saturday in Lake Charles, La., falling 88-13 to the league-leading Louisiana Swashbucklers.

Fairbanks head coach John Fourcade didn’t give much attention to the Wild’s loss against the 13-0 Swashbucklers because he wants his own team to be focused tonight after their 59-50 loss to the Odessa Roughnecks last Saturday in Odessa, Texas.

“You don’t want to show them too much film of them (Wild) getting their butts handed to them,’’ said Fourcade, “because then they start thinking, ‘Ah! Look at what those guys did to them.’ That’s Louisiana and we’re not Louisiana.”

“We’ve got to play hard-nosed, 60 minutes of football. The thing I’ve tried to emphasis is ‘Guys, we’ve got a chance to knock somebody out of the playoffs.’ If we can beat them and other things happen ... that’s your goal, that’s your playoff game right there. You should be focused to play right now.’’

The Grizzlies hope to show tonight the competitiveness that had them playing their last two games — the defeat in Odessa and a 54-51 loss at San Angelo on June 14 — close and down to the last minute.

“We fight hard all game,’’ said quarterback Bo Bartik, “but it’s little things throughout the game, little mistakes that we just made too many of. It’s the team with the fewest mistakes that wins the game.’’

The Grizzlies hope they’re that team tonight.

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