Round 4
by Andy Lovseth
After finally breaking through on the weekend, Doublewide kept on rolling in the first half against Revolver, whose tournament came to screeching halt against Truck Stop the previous round. Doublewide took advantage of their high spirits and their opponent's low ones, by striking quick and striking hard with their huck happy offense.
In the second half, it became quite apparent that Doublewide was keying on Kiran Thomas, their super-athletic deep cutter. Point after point Thomas continued to posterize the Revolver D. Then they adjusted. They put Tyler Grant on Thomas, and came off the back with deep poach help. With a 1:2 match up, Revolver created D's as Doublewide continued to depend on their deep looks.
It was one too many unnecessary turns. After leading the whole game, at 14-14, game capped at 15, Revolver broke the one-trick Doublewide offense and put in the goal for the game, 15-14. It was the antithesis of Truck's Stop performance a round earlier; Doublewide was unable to finish.
After the high of the squeaking out a victory over Jam in the first round, the Condors seemed completely ineffectual. Against Sub Zero, they couldn't produce on offense and their defense was unable to stop the Minneapolis hucks. Sub Zero wins 13-9.
Truck Stop, rolling since their first round loss, kept the pressure on their opponents with a 13-8 win over Voodoo.
It should be said, for posterity, that Jam was undermanned for the entire weekend. Kevin Cissna, Taylor Cascino, and Gabe Saunkeah played zero points, and Idris Nolan and Jeff Eastham-Anderson played limitedly through injury. But with that being said, their remaining roster struggled to keep up with Bravo.
Throughout the tournament, and throughout the showcase game, Jam was plagued by turnovers—uncharacteristic drops and throwing blunders—and at the most inopportune times. Against Bravo they had a half dozen drops in the endzone and throwaways on the goal line. You can't overcome that statistic—you just can't.
Bravo's offense had six turnovers to Jam's eleven. But Bravo also had four breaks to Jam's zero. And that was the difference. With Bravo's offense clicking on their hucks, and their defense creating turns with skying and layout D's, the game seemed out of reach to Jam from the beginning, and only being down 7-5 at half.
But with three more quick breaks at the beginning of the second half, Bravo put the game out of reach for good. 13-8 Johnny Bravo.