Soul Look To Stay Perfect Saturday In Cleveland

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Soul head to Cleveland this week for a Saturday night match-up with the Gladiators.

Philadelphia is alone in first place in the AFL with a 3-0 record. Last time out, the Soul hammered Baltimore in their home opener at the Center, 69-34.

"We got off to a fast start, finally," Soul head coach Clint Dolezel tells KYW Newsradio. "We hadn't had one of those this year. That's more like what I expect from our group. We jumped up 21-0, had a rough patch in the second quarter, couldn't get out of our own way. Then getting the ball coming out in the second half and our defense playing the way they were, we were in pretty good shape all night."

Listen to the entire interview with Soul head coach Clint Dolezel

Wide receiver Ryan McDaniel had a big night in the win over the Brigade, finishing with eight catches for 123 yards and five touchdowns.

"With our receiving corps of four guys now, it's kind of pick your poison," Dolezel says. "Whoever's in motion, if you want to play them man, they're going to have a good night. Happened to be Ryan's night, they tried to play him man-to-man all night long and he made them pay for it."

The Cleveland team the Soul will visit on Saturday is 1-3 on the young season, but their victory came last time out on Friday when they took care of Washington, 48-34.

"They really got decimated in the first week with defensive back (injuries), all three of them went out, two of them went on IR," Dolezel says. "You're going to struggle when you have a revolving door at DB back there and they've had that for four weeks now. They'll get some players back here in the next week or so, probably one back this weekend in Kent Richardson. So I expect them to be a little better defensively, for sure. And they have been scoring. They put up some good numbers, they've a good veteran receiving corps as well over there."

This game was originally scheduled for Friday night, but had to be moved to Saturday because of a conflict with Cleveland's arena.

Saturday night's game in Cleveland will start at 7:00pm.