Andy Hamilton

ahamilton@dmreg.com

The Iowa Barnstormers surrendered 34 points in the fourth quarter last week, gave up 387 yards passing for the game and a three-touchdown lead nearly melted away in the final 10 minutes against San Antonio.

But coach Mike Hohensee found positives beneath a pile of late mistakes that nearly buried the Barnstormers in a 63-62 win.

"The thing that impressed me the most is we still made the plays at the end that we needed to," said Hohensee, whose team stopped a two-point conversion try, recovered an onside kick and ran the final 30 seconds off the clock to hang on for the win. "Probably the thing I like about our team is even though we didn't execute perfectly, we didn't tackle extremely well, but we played smart."

The Barnstormers (2-2) take on the Los Angeles Kiss (2-2) Saturday night inside Wells Fargo Arena. Here are three storylines to follow:

RATERINK RETURNS: J.J. Raterink's name is still etched alongside every single-season passing record in Barnstormers history, but the 32-year-old quarterback who posted franchise-best numbers in 2012 returns to Wells Fargo Arena to take on his former team.

The Barnstormers traded Raterink last September for a pick that they used on quarterback Carson Coffman.

"We just felt we needed a change at that position," Hohensee said.

Coffman is third in the league with 1,065 yards passing and has 20 touchdown passes and four interceptions. Raterink is eighth in passing yards with 932 and has tossed 17 touchdowns and six picks.

"He's a streaky quarterback," Hohensee said of Raterink. "If he gets on a roll he's very tough. If he's comfortable, gets back there in three or five steps and gets rid of the football, he's good. But if you can disguise things and make him move in the pocket, that's when he's not nearly as effective."

PESTERING PAYS OFF FOR GORNALL: A couple weeks ago, Ross Gornall was an unemployed kicker living in Cleveland and waiting for a team to call — or at least one to pick up on the other end.

"You just try to network, get your name out there any way you can, send tapes to the front offices, try to be annoying," he said. "There are a lot of good kickers out there who deserve their shot, so you've got to stand out one way or another and try to get your name out any way you can."

The most annoying thing Gornall did?

"Repeated phone calls," he said. "If you're not going to answer, I'm going to keep calling back. It gets to a point where it's like, 'OK, this kid is determined and it shows.' "

Gornall, who had a brief stay with the Barnstormers last year, returned to Iowa last week and went 9-for-9 on extra-point opportunities against San Antonio.

FINDING A SEAT: The Barnstormers have been playing musical chairs on defense, and Hohensee said some of the movement last week with players in different positions contributed to breakdowns in "the tackling fence."

"We talked about it and we made tackling a point of emphasis and finishing the play," Hohensee said. "Usually, we've always been one of the best teams in the league at tackling. If L.A. is looking at that film from last week, the offense is probably licking their chops, thinking (San Antonio) had a quarterback who threw for 128 yards the week before they played us and all of a sudden he almost goes for four bills. I'm sure J.J. and those guys are probably relaxed a little bit and I hope they come in here a little content, like they should eat this up. I think we could have something for them."