Orlando went into Saturday night as the Alliance of American Football’s only undefeated team. The Apollos came out of Saturday as the league’s only one-loss team.
The Arizona Hotshots knocked off the Apollos 22-17. Orlando now is 5-1, with a 1 1/2-game lead on the Birmingham Iron in the Eastern Conference, while Arizona improved to 3-3.
Orlando quarterback Garrett Gilbert, who passed for 269 yards and two touchdowns, nearly pulled out the last-second victory for the Apollos. He threw a long pass to Jalin Marshall to the Arizona 8-yard line with the clock running in the waning seconds.
The Apollos hustled to the line and, with four seconds remaining, Gilbert spiked the ball to stop the clock. But two offensive linemen were moving at the snap, and with the Apollos out of timeouts, the false start penalty included a 10-second runoff.
Ball game.
Arizona running back Jhurell Pressley ran for 57 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries and caught one pass for 9 yards. Hotshots quarterback John Wolford completed 16 of 27 passes for 162 yards and a touchdown.
