Pittsburgh Passion Defeats Cleveland Fusion, Secures Playoff Spot

Krystal Cozzo (right) with Michele Brevard

"Wow! Was that great? How great was that?!"

I turned and there was Franco Harris just behind me on the sidelines, thoroughly enthused and grinning like the Cheshire Cat after Krystal Cozzo jumped a little sideline route and took the INT to the house for the first score of the game, to put the Passion up 7-0.

As of January, 2011, Franco is part-owner of the Pittsburgh Passion and a long-time supporter of the team. And, I think we can safely say, an expert on football. This being Pittsburgh and all, it's like having a rock star on the sidelines. At halftime, Franco remained on the field and had security open the gate, so that the kids who wanted to meet him could hang out on the sidelines with him for a bit. (Frankly, I think the parents were just as excited, if not more so, to get the chance to meet Franco and get a picture of him.) The guy is good with kids. He was like the Pied Piper out there, talking to the kids, signing anything that people thrust at him, posing for picture after picture. It was good stuff.

Back to the game. Even though the Passion had smoked the Cleveland Fusion earlier in the season, by a score of 26-8, I thought this might be a real test for them. The Fusion seemed to have improved (they hung up 76 points on the Pittsburgh Force last week) and the playoffs were on the line for the Passion. Also, though the Fusion doesn't have the offensive firepower of some other teams, they do have Lisa Horton at quarterback and she is, for my money, the best, most complete quarterback I've seen in the women's game (more on that later.) So, anything can happen, I figured.

I thought, I really thought that the 2007 Passion had the best defense I might ever see on a women's football team.

As with so many things, I was wrong. Enter the 2011 Passion defense -- a unit that put on a clinic in terms of rising up in big occasions, forcing the issue, and imposing their will on another team.

Most of the players, I know from earlier teams. A few have been there since the beginning (Beth Amato and JoJo Warner); some were there through the 2007 championship season (Trumane Rogers, Michele Brevard, Sharon Vasquez, Olivia Griswold, and Kim Zubovic), but there are newer additions, lots of them, who are big contributors, too (Cozzo, Jen Hoffman, Stephanie Balochko, Octavia Griswold (Olivia's twin sister), Jen Dulski and Ali McGrath.)

After Kozzo's interception, Horton did what she does best -- she regrouped the Fusion and led them on a long march, dinking and dunking the whole way, perfect little passes into the flat, little bubble screens, and running herself so effectively that when the horn sounded the end of the 1st quarter, Cleveland was perched on the goal-line, having held the ball nearly the entire quarter. Just when it looked like Pittsburgh might be in a little trouble, on a 4th and goal with just about a foot to go, OG (Olivia Griswold) crashed through as Horton rolled left, tackling her for a four yard loss, ending the threat.

Then Kozzo was back to work, recovering a muffed punt return deep in Cleveland territory, which Lyndsi Hughes cashed in a few minutes later with a nifty eight yard touchdown run to make it 14-0. And the romp was on. Pittsburgh ran a variation of a play that they used to call "Cleveland," back in championship season, with the QB lined up in the slot, rolling into the backfield to take the pitch, then going deep. Used to be they ran it with Horton on the trigger, but this time it was AJ Haeg (in her first year at QB), hitting rookie wide out Rachel Wodjowksi for the touchdown.

The defense did some serious damage, on the scoreboard, but also in the trenches. Horton dropped back in the pocket. As she cocked her arm up to her ear to release the ball, she was sandwiched by OG and Amato. It was a long time before Horton got up and made her way to the sidelines, handing the offense over to Danisha Garrison at quarterback.

At the start of the 3rd quarter, Tru Rogers picked off a Garrison pass over the middle and took that in for a touchdown to make it 28-0. And they weren't done scoring yet. A bit later, Garrison dropped back to pass and McGrath blew through her block, was just about to drag the Fusion QB down, when, inexplicably, she just tossed the ball up in the air. Not to put too fine a point on it -- but it was an extremely bad decision. Amato had come crashing through on her side and was right there, the ball just popped into her hands. She was off, running wild, like a little kid who has just discovered the joy of running hard and fast, blond ponytail bouncing behind her, shoulder pads bouncing up and down. It was a scene of pure joy in the endzone as Amato's teammates swarmed her in celebration. It may not be the biggest touchdown of her career or the most important, but I have to wonder if it wasn't the most fun.

Lisa Horton led the Passion through so many seasons, some good, some not so good and one that was perfect. After 2009, she retired and last fall, she coached the quarterbacks at Coolidge High School (in D.C.) It seemed like her playing career was over and her coaching career just beginning, but life circumstances called Horton back to Cleveland, where she grew up and, you know, football is in her blood, so she finds herself wearing the orange and brown of the Cleveland Fusion these days. She's a tough competitor and gamely came back to play the 4th quarter (with broken ribs or a cracked sternum or bruised sternum, she wasn't sure which), but it didn't matter for the Fusion. This was the Passion's night and, to be specific, it was the Passion defense's night. They were not to be denied.

The win puts the Passion in the playoffs for sure and I believe this means a likely home playoff game, potentially against the Chicago Force (the team that ended their 2008 run.) In the meantime, they have to take care of business against the Erie Illusion this coming Saturday (June 18th) at Cupples, and then get ready for the playoffs. They will most definitely play the winner of the central division on June 25th (and it looks like that will be the Chicago Force, the team that ended their run in 2008.) I'll have more information here when I know more about playoff seeding, locations, match ups and gameday info.

When I don't spend time on the sidelines of Passion games, there are things I miss, little moments -- Sharon Vasquez choking down pickle juice to fight off leg cramps, listening to linebacker Jen Dulski take a good-natured ribbing after her single snap at fullback (a 2 yard gain), having Janice Masters breakdown Cleveland's offensive tendencies in live action, waiting for the blazing hot sun to drop below the western lip of Cupples Stadium and just enjoying the constant banter of the players. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's good to be back at Cupples.

Pittsburgh Passion Has New Master Plan for 2010 Season

From True/Slant on April 20, 2010:

It was not a good start. First, she was swept up in a blind-side blitz. Then she got dumped on her head and watched the play upside down. Next time out, she took a helmet, or two, in the kidneys. That was the beginning of the Masters era as the Pittsburgh Passion opened the 2010 season at the Erie Illusion on April 3rd.

Two weeks later, at Pittsburgh’s home opener, she was untouched. Against the Philadelphia Firebirds, quarterback Janice Masters’ stat line read: five plays – three touchdown passes. (The other two plays, it should be noted, were runs.)

That was all in the first quarter. After that, her last play of the game was to hand off to her back ups with her team comfortably up 28-0. The defense added a couple of touchdowns on interception returns, and the offense, in Masters’ absence, added a few more as she watched from the sidelines. The 49-0 shellacking of Philadelphia was a good warm up for Pittsburgh, but presents other challenges.

Talent, ability and organizational stability and structure varies wildly within the world of women’s full-contact football, as the Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia game illustrates. Though the Philadelphia website lists a roster of over 30 players, only 15 arrived to play in Pittsburgh and, against a team like the Passion which has a full-complement of players (by IWFL rule, 45 players can dress, much like the NFL), they are unable to seriously compete, regardless of the ability of those players. But this sort of pairing happens a few times each season — in which teams of such divergent capacities meet on the field. Although it’s not really good for anybody.

The undermanned teams take a pounding. Not to mention that it can’t be any fun and I often marvel at the ability of those players to drag themselves up off the turf to keep going until the final gun. It’s not good for the dominant teams, either. For a team like the Passion, they risk turning off potential fans. Fans may like seeing the hometown team win, but they also like watching competitive football and sitting in the bleachers for such a lop-sided affair, in temperatures more suited to a mid-October night than a mid-April is not the best lure. It’s just another pitfall in a landscape full of unique challenges that the Passion and their owner, T. Conn, have to navigate.

Despite those challenges, the Passion has built a solid fanbase, a brand and a tradition of winning. At the very least, they always hold their own against the best competition and have advanced to the post-season the last three years. That’s always the goal – to make it to the playoffs – but even so, there were serious questions about the Passion heading into 2010.

There are always roster changes due to retirements, injuries and attrition. At least, on the defensive side of the ball, Pittsburgh came into 2010 with the same tough defense. There were plenty of new players, but the core, the heart of the defense was still there: Plex (Michele Brevard), (Beth) Amato and JoJo (Warner), OG (Olivia Griswold) and Tia (Montgomery).

But even with the defensive strength, and even given that teams face turnover every year, it’s not often that a team loses: (a) the entire offensive line, (b) the offensive coordinator, and (c) the starting quarterback. That’s one hell of a rebuilding job for a team to undertake and exactly Pittsburgh was up against heading into 2010.

The quarterback is always in the spotlight, always receives more credit when the team wins, and is generally the most recognizable face on the franchise. This was as true of Lisa Horton as it is of Tom Brady, relatively speaking. The sight of #14 scampering around on the field, dark brown ponytail obscuring the name on her jersey, throwing b.b.’s or scrambling for a first down, was a familiar one for Passion fans. After all, Horton had quarterbacked the team since the beginning in 2003.

Of course, Pittsburgh had the advantage of having somebody like Masters waiting in the wings. She is not new to this, is well known by her teammates and backed up Horton for the last two years. Plus, Masters has a quick mind and is one of the best pure throwers of the ball I’ve seen in the women’s game. But her style is very different from Horton’s and one the team will have to continue adjusting to. Masters’ game is more Peyton Manning than Brett Favre, which is to say that where Horton was more prone to scramble or improvise, Masters is more likely going to progress with her reads from the pocket. And she has the arm strength to hit out-routes and deep post-patterns with accuracy. When she has the time that is.

The offensive line protecting her in front of her is entirely new. Gone were the line standouts who played years in front of Horton. Carol Dennison and Eden Pleva are gone to retirement. Sarah Young and Rhonda Donahoo are out with injuries. Lauren Bracco moved to the defensive line. So the line in front Masters, while not necessarily new to football is new to line play and for such a thankless job, the offensive line is one of the most complicated jobs on the field. There is much to learn and just a moment’s hesitation on the part of a lineman can mean the difference between a completed pass or Masters ending up on her back.

Despite their early foibles against the Erie Illusion, things got better for the line as that game wore on, with Masters hitting on two touchdown passes and completing five passes for more than 20 yards. In her scant time in the Philly tilt, she averaged over 22 yards per completion — all touchdowns.

The learning curve has been good so far, but the team will face it’s first serious test for the new era against the 2-0 Militia on Saturday, April 24th, in Boston. Providing time for their quarterback and opening holes for the running game will be a steep challenge for the line and one that will show just how fast they have mastered those positions.

Woman on the Offensive Line Plays Last Football Game

From True/Slant on June 30, 2009


Rhonda Donahoo told me this wasn’t the way she wanted to end her football career. She had played the 2009 season against her doctor’s wishes, having already pushed her body past reasonable limits, so she knew the Pittsburgh Passion’s 27-17 loss at the D.C. Divas marked her final game in uniform. The playoff loss was just the third loss for this full-contact women’s football team in as many seasons, during the course of which they compiled an overall record of 27-3. The Divas advanced and will host the Boston Militia in the eastern conference championship game on July 11th, the winner of which will play in the IWFL (Independent Women’s Football League) Championship game in Austin, Texas on July 25th.

But Pittsburgh’s Rhonda Donahoo can put her shoulder pads in mothballs and place her banged up helmet on the mantle. She played her six year career on the offensive line, where bodies take and dish out some of the fiercest punishment on a football field and the endeavor has taken its toll.

There at the very beginning, Donahoo is one of the 11 active players who remain from that original 2003 Pittsburgh Passion roster. Back then, the team was affiliated with a different league, then the NWFA and these women, volunteer football players, raised money to get the team up and running (and continue to cultivate sponsors and fund-raise to this day). They were there for the first practice, the first scrimmage and the first game. They played through growing pains and rough years, when they were all really just figuring out how to play organized football. They’ve seen coaches come and go and have called four different Pittsburgh area fields their home turf.

In 2007, the squad largely reflected that original roster and, on a muggy July night in Nashville, they won the NWFA championship. Donahoo played that game with one knee sort of taped and banded into place — a jerry-rigged invention of a creative training staff catering to her desire to finish out the run on the field. One recent evening, she sat down with me and recounted the litany of injuries, but there were so many, I can’t remember them all and I’ve certainly forgotten some of the details. Following the 2007 championship, Donahoo hobbled into the sunset and underwent multiple surgeries. She was laid up for months. She knew she could never play football again, but hoped to resume some normal activities, like taking a spin on a bicycle, or just going for a long, aimless walk.

In 2008, the team switched leagues (from the NWFA to the IWFL) while Donahoo rehabbed and checked the scores; she just couldn’t bring herself to sit in the stands and watch. The Passion were undefeated through the regular season, but lost in the 2008 Eastern Conference Championship game in Chicago. Donahoo decided to give playing one more shot, to try to squeeze one more season out of her knees and ankles.

So she returned to the team in the winter of 2009, started every game at guard and was named an alternate to the IWFL all-star squad. A little over two weeks ago, with a playoff berth on the line, Donahoo played her thankless role on the offensive line, as the Passion beat the New York Sharks in an overtime thriller to end the regular season. With that, she had one more shot at a championship.

Of course, playoff seeding being what it is, Pittsburgh’s first test was to beat the D.C. Divas, their long time rival and the only team which had beaten them in 2009. Still, the team felt, or maybe they hoped, their wild victory in New York would be the springboard to another championship run, the last chance for Donahoo and some of the other original players to win a second title before focusing their energies on other endeavors. As Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll said, at some point, you have to get on with your life’s work.

The June 27th playoff game in suburban D.C. was one of missed opportunities for the Passion. With the teams slugging out a scoreless game through the 1st quarter, on the sidelines, I felt like Pittsburgh was winning the battle of attrition, when all of a sudden, D.C. was threatening to score from the Pittsburgh 10. But the Pittsburgh defense stiffened, led by Jen Dulski who hammered Diva quarterback Allyson Hamlin on a blitz, then made another tackle for no gain on a run. The ball went over on downs, but the Passion turned it right back over with a fumble. The Divas punched it in easily. It was just that kind of a night — one step forward, two steps back.

Pittsburgh hung in there, but made mistakes at key moments, while the Divas avoided big mistakes. After the Passion went up 10-7 early in the 3rd quarter on an Amanda Haeg scamper into the corner of the end zone, D.C. answered quickly, as Hamlin tossed a beauty of a fade route to Tara Stephenson for a touchdown. (I have to take a moment to point out that Hamlin and Stephenson run that fade pattern as well as any quarterback-wide out combination I’ve seen at any level. For real.) From there, D.C. cruised, ensuring that there would be no shot at a second title for Donahoo and the Passion.

I’ve spent a couple of seasons around the team. I’ve gotten to know them as football players and as people, too. There are always a handful of veterans threatening to retire; I’ve learned that sometimes they mean it and sometimes they don’t. But this year I get the eerie feeling a lot of these players have played their last games in black and gold.

Seasons end and players part ways, leaving behind team workouts, film sessions, practices, travel days and game day routines. The transition is always tough, but for returning players, the sting of cleaning out their lockers is balanced by the promise of another season still to come; fall workouts will be upon them before they know it. For those who have played their last game in uniform, the sense of loss can be overwhelming.

Just moments after the horn sounded the end of the game, the Pittsburgh players huddled together on the field and Donahoo knelt a few yards behind them, flanked by two teammates. I don’t know if she was felled by physical pain, exhaustion, overwhelming emotion, or, most likely, some combination of the three. Eventually, she pulled off her shoulder pads, pulled herself up, and joined her teammates. For the last time on a football field.

Later that night, over beers, she teared up when we talked about it being the end of the line. And then, as she always has, she became the life of the party, goofing off with total strangers in the suburban DC hotel bar, dancing, raising a ruckus and entertaining her teammates. Maybe that was the last time, too.