CFL Season XVI (1013) - Playoffs
It's that time again. Of the 36 teams that began the season with bright aspiration, fewer than half remain with their goal of winning the Dragon Bowl intact. Making the postseason is a great accomplishment, but only one team will end the season completely satisfied. It's time CFL Playoffs time! Single-elimination. No mercy. No second-chances.
SILVER CONFERENCE
1Dawchire Eagles 7 10 0 7 24
4Jädde Brutes 0 6 0 6 12
2Mallox Iron Tigers 7 6 0 7 20
3Centus Owls 6 10 10 9 35
The Dawchire Eagles and Jädde Brutes are similar teams. Opposite running backs Nic Perrantes and Avery Broddick are both RCU legends and NSCF champions. Both have big Vloo no. 1 receivers in Corns Na'Domha and Cozmar Na'Bami - who also happen to be great friends and NSCF competitors. The difference? Perrantes is eight years younger than Broddick and the Eagles have more thrust in the trenches. They win, to the surprise of pretty much no one who watched their 13-3 regular season. With star pass rush duo Toby Tancredi & Maximillian Hall at the tail-end of their primes, this is an ensemble at the peak of its power (on defense, at least). Probably Dawchire's best window at a championship before the window starts closing. The up-tempo offense of the Centus Owls awaits them in the divisional round. They should match up better than Mallox did. The Iron Tigers are a powerful defense, but they were too slow to keep up with Enok Rye's calculated execution of his QB-friendly system. On the other side of the ball, Owls' star linebacker Martell Chievous will have his hands full tracking Eagles back Perrantes.
1Hagenheim Vagabonds 3 3 3 14 23
4Morponte Marauders 0 7 0 10 17
2Olask Dolphins 3 3 0 7 3 16
3Versiaville Vikings 0 0 10 3 0 13
Over in the Silver West match-ups, two outlaw-named teams (the Vagabonds and Marauders) exploded for a high-scoring 4th quarter duel after an ugly first three. The defending champions won it on Kenji Toyashimo's 10-yard QB scramble to the corner of the endzone with 0:19 remaining after Morponte had just settled for a field goal to put them up by 1. Top seeds advance. Same held true on Olask Isle as the Dolphins welcomed the nearby Versiaville Vikings across the strait for gritty, physical battle in the rain and mud that looked like it could go either way until Olask kicked a go-ahead field goal with two minutes left and then Ofi Mondragon recovered a crucial Neptune Trevorrow fumble on Versiaville's ensuing drive.
BLUE CONFERENCE
1Samotath Scourge 7 3 3 3 16
4Ramusok Stars 3 14 7 3 27
2Hvalsey Lions 0 10 0 0 10
3Emerald Cove Conquistadors 7 7 10 3 27
1Samaj Spartans 7 6 6 10 29
4Helfin Mighty Men 10 0 7 3 20
2OAS Kingsmen 0 7 14 7 28
3Pelethas Thunder 0 0 7 3 10
Scourge down! The surprise contenders of the season made plenty of headlines in the regular season, but couldn't get it up for a postseason run unfortunately, held out of the endzone after their opening drive by the less talented but vastly more playoff-experienced Stars. Ramusok have the oldest roster in the league. Do long-serving icons like linebacker Braxton Arispe (35) and receiver Duke Leonard (33) - not to mention grandpa-aged punter Keevu Schavinski - have a Dragon Bowl run in their old legs? If we get this version of Garron Holland, the capital's polarizing QB, then perhaps... although Brandon Reigner's Emerald Cove juggernaut awaits next. They put the Lions back in their place today! So nevermind. Oh yeah, and Ramusok's "other team" won too! Their first playoff win in the CFL era! Ugly ducklings of the capital, no more? All of a sudden, OAS Kingsmen look like real threats after pulling off the largest victory of the first round - over a marquee Blue Conference playoff team in the Pelethas Thunder, no less. They'll play Samaj next, who are somehow still dark horses despite an excellent regular season, a #1 seed, and a vintage Aman Na'Vibe gunslinging performance to punch out the Finnegan Trophy winners. That will be a good one.
SILVER CONFERENCE
Dawchire Eagles 3 0 0 3 6
Centus Owls 14 7 0 17 38
Hagenheim Vagabonds 0 3 10 0 13
Olask Dolphins 6 3 7 7 23
Wowowow! The Centus Owls have caught fire! Pelinor Lione repeatedly gashed the Eagles' over-aggressive defensive front with delayed handoffs, and when they adjusted for the run, Enok Rye simply kept the ball and found elusive slot receiver Tjiro Nalta in space. Rinse, wash, repeat. More impressively, the Owls were able to ground the larger predatory birds on defense too. Alfredo Cazorla sacked Griffin Lintonsmith three times and corner Lark Bowman singlehandedly SHUT DOWN Corns Na'Domha on the outside, which allowed the interior defense to really key in on Perrantes and bottle him up. 38 to fucking 6 over the Silver Conference's overall top seed. Shocking game. And the surprising weekend was only getting started! Later that night, Esben Oesterwind masterfully exposed the gaps in the Vagabonds' secondary and sent the defending champions home.
BLUE CONFERENCE
Ramusok Stars 0 6 6 3 15
Emerald Cove Conquistadors 17 3 0 3 23
Samaj Spartans 10 7 10 3 30
OAS Kingsmen 0 0 0 6 6
Emerald Cove race out to a 20-0 lead against a terribly outmatched Ramusok Stars team and go into cruise control from there, even going as far as to give rest to some starters in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. No luck for the other Ramusoki franchise either -- the Kingsmen just didn't know what to do with themselves on this stage and the tough, experienced Spartans ran spears through them. OAS quarterback Taron Thalman threw four interceptions in the biggest game of his career. Hopefully it doesn't damage his newfound confidence from this season too much. He can be a joy to watch throw the football when he's feeling his groove.
SILVER CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP
Centus Owls 6 7 0 3 16
Olask Dolphins 3 0 3 7 13
Centus were not a popular pick for the Dragon Bowl, but they take care of business against the Dolphins. So much of winning a Dragon Bowl just boils down to getting hot at the right time and riding the hot hand. They certainly have that. The Silver Conference Championship win wasn't as flashy as their previous two playoff wins, but it demonstrated a maturity and poise under pressure that we weren't sure they had. When the Dolphins made their second half push and erased the Owls' 13-3 lead, they didn't panic, but simply stayed true to their hurry-up offense / Cover 3 defense systems and continued executing them patiently. After three consecutive punts in the 4th, the Owls finally drove 35 yards down the field and kicked a game-winning field goal, then forced a Turnover-on-Downs to ice it.
BLUE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP
Emerald Cove Conquistadors 3 10 0 3 16
Samaj Spartans 6 0 3 10 19
The Spartans were great in the 4th quarter and showed a lot of spirit to come back, but this will go down as a Conquistadors choke. They were the overwhelming favorites to win the Dragon Bowl now with the Vagabonds and Eagles out (Spartans underrated yet again - they should've been up there with those three from the start) and led for most of the game, but just couldn't get anything going when it counted. Reigner went silent in the second half and the Spartans stepped in to fill the gap. Aman Na'Vibe was clutch in the 4th quarter as the Spartans mounted a ten-point comeback and that one-handed Devin Ferris touchdown grab to take the lead will live long in the memories of Samaj sports fans. The Spartans are going to their first Dragon Bowl! Will it join their Finnegan Trophy from a couple years ago on the mantle?
The 16th edition of gridiron's biggest game will feature one franchise that has been consistently good for many years... but have never quite been able to take that final step into the Dragon Bowl spotlight. The Spartans. And another franchise that was abysmal for much of the CFL era to date but has started to emerge as a legitimate team to be reckoned with in the last few seasons. Now they're both here! We will crown a brand new CFL champion tonight.
Will the Owls' distinctive hurry-up offense and conservative defense prove a winning recipe or will the more traditional Spartans, anchored by the league's best middle-linebacker and some savvy veterans on offense, tell the east coast upstarts to wait their turn?
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Some nerves after kickoff as these two Dragon Bowl debutants tried to adjust to playing in front of a packed Leviathan Arena, camera flashes going off constantly and Cosumarite celebrities everywhere. After trading a few long field goals over the first quarter-and-a-half, both teams finally found some offensive rhythm before half time. The Spartans, in green-and-white, went 90 yards with 7:33 left with a nice array of Na'Vibe slants to Devin Ferris and Darrelius Diggs pounding up the middle behind monstrous center Tyson Bailey. Then, the Owls found their wings and went 65 yards to cut the Spartan's lead to 13-10, a big chunk of it coming on a spectacular 41-yard catch-and-run by Beyus Edelweiss.
The third quarter ended up being the difference, however. Whereas the Owls looked shaken by stage fright again after a controversial halftime performance by popstar Kierin Okkelfjord that included a full-nude striptease, the Spartans kept building upon their momentum from the end of the first half. Thorin Cherufin was magisterial on the defensive side of the ball, stuffing the stat box with 15 tackles, 2 sacks, an interception and a forced fumble. Much of that was in the third quarter. His interception set up a field goal to make it 16-10, and then Aman Na'Vibe put together arguably the best touchdown drive of his career - using his legs AND his arm to devastating effect - to escalate the Spartans' lead to 23-10 with 3:23 remaining in the third.
With the Owls' up-tempo offense bogged down and drained of the confidence that fueled them through the playoffs, and the Spartans content to drain the clock with Diggs, the fourth quarter was short on action. 23-10 would be the final. By the time the clock mercifully hit double zeroes at last, half of the largely pro-Centus crowd in Kaldukosic had already left Dragon Bowl XI early. A bit of anticlimactic atmosphere for Na'Vibe and the Spartans' long-awaited triumph, but they won't care. They did it, bolstering the legacy of this core immeasurably. They finish the season 16-4, the best record in franchise history.
The SAMAJ SPARTANS are the Dragon Bowl XVI Champions! They are now 1-0 in Dragon Bowls, while the Owls disappointingly fall to 0-1. It is the second CFL silverware for the Spartans though, as they won the Finnegan Trophy in 1011.The Dragon Bowl MVP Vote was one of the closest ever, with quarterback Aman Na'Vibe and linebacker Thorin Cherufin going down to the wire. Cherufin was ultimately named the official MVP of the game, but he gracefully gave the award to Na'Vibe to keep for the 32-year-old's many years of service as the unsung leader of Samaj's team. The Samaj Spartans' victory interrupts Silver Conference's run of three straight Dragon Bowls, drawing Blue Conference back level at 8-8 in the all-time series.
Post-Season Awards
Season MVP: Brandon Reigner (QB, Emerald Cove Conquistadors)
Dragon Bowl MVP: Thorin Cherufin (LB, Samaj Spartans)
Offensive Player of the Year: Thos Na'Basi (WR, Hagenheim Vagabonds)
Defensive Player of the Year: Thorin Cherufin (LB, Samaj Spartans)
Foreign Player of the Year: Tyson Bailey (C, Samaj Spartans - QUE)
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Tjiro Nalta (WR, Centus Owls)
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Mohammad Mussic (FS, Samotath Scourge)