Empire Strikes Back while Northern Arizona Wrangles a Title

Two indoor football leagues crowned their champions for the 2022 season as the Indoor Football League (IFL) and National Arena League (NAL) played their championship games on Saturday.

Indoor Football League

The Northern Arizona Wranglers won their first championship with a thrilling 47-45 win over the Quad City Steamwheelers at The Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada.  The Wranglers pulled ahead with a fourth-down two-yard jump pass from Kaleb Barker to Israel Tucker for a 47-37 lead with one minute left.  The Steamwheelers struck back quickly in two plays as quarterback E.J. Hilliard hit Mike Carrigan with a 30-yard touchdown pass with 44 second to play.  They converted a two-point play to get within two points, but the Wranglers took possession and ran out the clock to take the title.  

Wranglers' defensive end JaQuan Artis was named the games' most valuable player.  He had five tackles, two sacks and two tackles for losses. 

The Wranglers were 1-13 last season.


National Arena League

The Albany Empire defense was the story of the game as they held the Carolina Cobras to 20 points and shutting them down six times including interceptions by Jake Metz and Melvin Hollis.  Nick Hagg stopped two other drives with sack and fumble recovery in a dominating 47-20 win.   Albany outscore Carolina 34-0 in the second and third quarters.  Quarterback Sam Castronova had six touchdown passes in the game.

The game was played at MVP Arena in Albany.  This was the Empire second straight NAL title as well as winning the final ArenaBowl title in 2019 in the now-defunct Arena Football League.





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