It was a huge week, as we were going up against a rival team, the Mean Machines out of Stockholm who were also tied for 1st place in the league.  The rivalry has been going on for years and you could feel the tension all through pre-game.  This was a huge game in terms of respect, bragging rights, and the standings.  This game was a milestone for one of our veteran receivers Kalle Flogman as it marked his 100th career game in the Super Series; it also was the first game of my fellow former Bishop Jez Davis.

Stockholm won the coin toss and elected to put their offense on the field first.  It took only two plays for Jez to get involved as he and the running back met 1-on-1 up the middle... it was a hard hit that Jez caught the worst end of as he went low on the tackle and caught a knee to the head.  He was out for the rest of the series, as it was his first real contact in 9 months and it left him a little woozy; the Machines took it in for a score a couple of plays later but failed on the 2pt conversion.  Stockholm’s kick-off was a hard, low onside kick that hit one of our guys in the back and brought our defense back onto the field seconds.  Stockholm punched it in leaving the score 12-0 before our offense even stepped on the field.  We moved the ball at will; however a sack made us settle for a 35-yard field goal that missed wide right. However, next time on the field, a huge one-handed catch by Flogman on a fade kept us on the field and set up the score on a pass to the TE Joakim “Pug” Holm.  We traded punts the next couple of drives, and the offense got the ball back with about 1:30 left in the half.  We went to our hurry-up offense with 3 timeouts remaining.  After 4 plays, a 25-yard scramble with 2 second remaining, which was made possible by some great downfield blocking, had us lining up for an extra point and going into the half up 13-12.

After doing nothing with the great field position given to us by our return team, the defense got us the ball back quick as Jez forced a turnover by causing and recovering a fumble.   However, neither team could find the end-zone in the 3rd quarter, but the Mean Machines found it early in the 4th.  We answered back with a quick 4-play drive of our own to take back the lead.  The Machines showed their fight as they answered right back by pounding the ball down field and into the end-zone. It was our day, however, as 4 more plays saw us celebrate 6 points on the board.  It was set up by a 40-yard pass to Flogman to bring us down to the 7-yard line, and 2 plays later, a QB sweep around the right scored.  We went for 2 and converted on a play-action slant pass to Pug that put us up by 3.  The biggest play of the day came when Stockholm’s QB dropped back to pass and attempted to scramble... linebacker Johan “Kenta” Bjorn was chasing and managed to knock the ball from his hand and pull him to the ground; we recovered.  With a little over a minute to play, we managed to get a 1st down and run out the rest of the clock. 

We put ourselves in great position heading into the closing of the season by beating one of the #1 teams and dropping them to 2nd place.  It also gives us the edge over them in the event of a tie when determining seedings.   It was important for us to win by at least 3 as we had let them slip away by 2 points the previous time we’d faced.  It was definitely a huge confidence boost to know that we could beat the top teams after failing before, and to know that we could make the plays when they needed to be made as a team.  We continue play next week against the Stu Bulls.