Glendale Raptors – 79
Albuquerque Aardvarks – 38

Glendale, Colo., Oct. 30 – The Glendale Raptors opened their annual Halloween weekend fall finale at Infinity Park here with a supernatural start, jumping to a 36-10 lead over the Albuquerque Aardvarks in the first 30 minutes of what turned into a haunting thriller.

In the creepy opening minutes the Raptors made the Aardvarks look like zombies, scoring five quick trys and a penalty kick. Then a frightening, freezing wind blew in hungry hordes of Albuquerque Ghost Busters and a spine-tingling thriller was underway. With brand-new character masks the Aardvarks scored four tries of their own aided by dreadful tackling by the Raptors. At halftime Albuquerque trailed the Raptors by only five points, 31-36.

The league leading and undefeated Raptors opened the second half with a penalty kick to pull ahead 39-31. Then in a horrifying reflection of the scary ending to the first half, Albuquerque scored another try and two-point conversion kick to pull flesh-eating close at 38-39.

At that moment the Raptors got a jolt from the graveyard shift and did the mash -- the monster mash -- scoring try after try to stop the vampires feast. The party had finally begun and it caught on in a flash and was a graveyard smash with Halloween rugby fans. Scoring six unanswered trys in the final 25 minutes, everything was again cool in Raptors land. The final score was Raptors 79, the baying Aardvarks 38.