Gladiators gamble, lose fifth straight

ATLANTA - Maybe a quarterback change is what the Gladiators needed after all.

In his first Arena Football League start, Brian Jones threw eight touchdown passes and led a last-second rally to put Las Vegas in a position to win, but a failed two-point conversion sealed a 69-68 win for the Georgia Force on Sunday at Phillips Arena.

"It makes you as a coach now kind of wonder if we made that move early, but you know we're going to keep battling," Gladiators coach Danto Barto said.

"We got a good nucleus here to build off of and we're going to keep fighting each week. I think we showed, probably against one of the top teams in the league, we could go toe to toe with them. I think we'll be a pain in somebody's side the rest of the year."

After a 1-5 season start, the Gladiators released starting quarterback Shaun King last week, moving Jones into the starting role. The University of Toledo product didn't disappoint, leading the Gladiators (1-6) to its second most points this season.

"That's his first start against a very good Georgia Force team, in a hostile environment," Barto said. "I'm exited. It's something to build off of."

With the Gladiators down 69-62 with 15 seconds to play, Jones hit Thabiti Davis for a 24-yard pass on fourth down. Davis lateraled the ball to Etu Molden for the score with eight seconds to play.

Davis was Las Vegas' leading receiver with 14 catches for 162 yards and three scores.

"He made a lot of great plays, especially that play at the end," Jones said of Davis. "That was amazing."

With his team already exhausted, Barto decided go for two and the win.

"We picked up a bug, the whole coaching staff and some of the players, we were pretty physically drained. I figured lets go for the win now," Barto said. "Because if we went to overtime I don't know how physical we would have been."

Jones was flushed to his left out of the pocket and Jarri Hillery picked off his pass in the end zone to seal the win for the Southern division leading Force (6-1). The loss was the fifth straight for the Gladiators.

It was the only blemish for Jones on an otherwise solid performance. He completed 27 of 37 passes for 366 yards and had a two-yard TD run.

"We got it down to the wire, probably against the best team in the AFL," Jones said. "It says a lot for us, especially looking at last week.

''I'm extremely proud for these guys for fighting like they did. It was a gutsy performance."

Georgia Force quarterback Chris Greisen completed 34 of 45 passes for 376 yards, a new team record, and had 10 TDs.