Neuheisel steps up as Seagulls edge Rise in thriller

Obic wide receiver Aruto Nishimura streaks past Nojima defenders to score a 31-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.

KAWASAKI (Aug. 28)—With the Obic Seagulls trailing 7-0 late in the third quarter, they opted to put quarterback Jerry Neuheisel back in, under the notion that he would be more effective against the stifling defense that the Nojima Sagamihara Rise were throwing at them.

“We [decided] to go with a guy who can get it deep on them and stretch them out little bit, because they were hugging us,” offensive coordinator Dan Lynds explained in opting for Neuheisel over veteran Shun Sugawara.

While Neuheisel responded with a 56-yard bomb to Noriaki Kinoshita for a touchdown to tie the game, it would be a short flip pass that would really make the decision pay off after the Rise had regained the lead on the next series.

Neuheisel managed to get the ball to Aruto Nishimura as he was being tripped after a scramble, and the rookie wide receiver cut across the field and took it all the way for a 31-yard touchdown reception as the Seagulls pulled off a 14-13 victory in a thrilling season-opener before 3,022 at Fujitsu Kawasaki Stadium.

“It’s great to have a win under your belt,” said Neuheisel, who saw action in the spring Pearl Bowl as he continues to make the adjustment to Japanese football. “I know it wasn’t pretty, definitely a lot of holding calls we want back and a lot of mistakes we wished we could take back.”

The Seagulls overcame an impressive debut by the Rise’s Michigan combo of quarterback Devin Gardner and wide receiver Jeremy Gallon, who put the league on notice that Nojima cannot be overlooked in the new format that schedules more clashes between top teams and no easy path to the postseason.

The 1.93-meter, 98-kilogram Gardner combined with Gallon on an 8-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter to give the Rise a 7-0 lead, then scored himself on a 2-yard run in the third quarter. A blocked extra point—rookie kicker Nanami Ariwa also had a 40-yard field goal attempt blocked in the second quarter—after the second score became the margin of difference.

“I’m excited to get a chance to play again,” said Gardner, who completed 21 of 37 passes for 290 yards with one interception. “It was good to get my feet wet. I hadn’t played in about a year now, almost two years since I started at quarterback. So it is good to get a chance to get out there.”

Both teams had touchdowns called back due to penalties as an intermittant rain fell throughout the game, which was a rematch of last year’s 10-7 overtime victory by the Rise. There was some concern whether the Rise’s new imports, who include safety Earnest Thomas, would be ready for the stiff opening test. They showed they were more than up for the challenge.

“That game easily could have been 13-0,” said Thomas, another Big 10 alumnus who played at Illinois. “Easily. It’s just some different things that we got to do on our side of the ball to make us be that much better. We’re really close, it’s just some adjustments we got to make.”

The Seagulls could not take advantage of two turnovers in the first half, and it was the Rise who were able to move the ball. In the second quarter, a 51-yard pass from Gardner to Musashi Yoshida put the Rise deep into Obic territory, but the drive ended when Takeshi Miyake intercepted a pass at the 1-yard line.

The Rise defense held and the resulting punt gave them the ball back on the Obic 42 with 1:27 left in the half. Gardner just overthrew Takahide Dejima on a bomb, then after a false start penalty, came back with  same play for a 43-yard gain to the Obic 4.

“We’ve got guys who can really play,” Gardner said. “I’m really excited about our skill positions, and we’ve got to use them. If it doesn’t work, we’ll come back to it at some point. Maybe not as early as we did today, but we have to come back to those plays that work and continue to develop.”

On the next play, Gardner rolled to his right on an apparent end sweep, but at the last second flipped the ball to Gallon, who made the catch in the end zone. But Gardner was flagged for being past the line of scrimmage, nullifying the TD. No matter, on the next play he hit Gallon on a slant pattern with :53 left on the clock.

“It goes with the game,” Gardner said of the penalty, which he was not so convinced about. “Peaks and valleys of the game, that’s why football is so great, and the greatest team sport there is. You got highs, you got lows, and you got to just deal with them.”

Takuto Hara’s 67-yard return of the ensuing kickoff gave Obic the ball on the Nojima 29. Two Sugawara completions moved the ball to the 3, where a holding penalty wiped out a TD pass to Ryoma Hagiyama. After linebacker Shugo Suzuki broke up a pass in the end zone, Obic came away empty-handed when Takatoshi Hoshino’s 30-yard field goal attempt was blocked. He would later miss a 33-yarder on a miserable day for both kickers.

After Obic failed to get anything going on its first two drives of the second half, Neuheisel was sent in to try to spark the offense.

“They played great defense, especially the first half, they were very, very good with what they were doing against us,” Lynds said. “They changed a few things up. It took us a long time to catch up.”

After a holding penalty set up a 3rd-and-14, Neuheisel ran 17 yards for a first down to the 44. On the next play, he launched a rainbow that settled into the arms of Kinoshita in full stride down the left sideline to make it 7-7 with 1:04 left in the third quarter.

Gardner and the Rise responded with an 18-play, 81-yard drive that took over seven minutes, included a successful 4th-down gamble, and culminated with the former Wolverine rolling right and cutting into the end zone from the 2. The blocked PAT left the Rise with a 13-7 lead with 5:50 to go in the game.

The undaunted Neuheisel completed four of five passes to move the Seagulls from the 25 to the Rise 31. After two incompletions, he and Nishimura pulled off their touchdown combination, with Hoshino adding the extra point to make it 14-13.

“You’ve got to get lucky sometimes, right?” Lynds said. “I’ll give it to Jerry and I’ll give it to all of our players that they stayed positive in a very, very frustrating game. The Rise did a great job of frustrating us by changing some things that we didn’t anticipate.”

Said Neuheisel: “We have a very, very talented offense, and the quarterback’s job is just to get the ball into the hands of rest of the guys who are way more athletic than we are. It was a fun job. I’m ecstatic that they let me do it and it was a great game.”

Obic preserved the win on Nojima’s final drive when, on 4th-and-3 at the 21, defensive end B.J. Beatty knocked backup quarterback Yuichiro Araki out of bounds a yard short of a first down. Gardner had been shaken up after a 9-yard run on the previous play.

“The Rise are a terrific team,” said Neuheisel, who finished 13 of 19 for 172 yards. “Devin Gardner played his butt off, and it was an unbelievable game. We knew that coming in. We have a lot of things to fix, but going forward, this is a great win and we’re excited to have it.”

Obic, which won an unprecedented four straight league titles in 2010-13, next faces the Meiji Yasuda PentaOcean Pirates on Sept. 11. Next up for Nojima are the Lixil Deers on Sept. 10.

—Ken Marantz for the X-League