“Bourbon Cup Round 4 (Finals):Beards Win Bourbon Cup Over Karag Dum

The Bourbon Cup of Season 9 was set between the Box Elder Beards (8/1/1), and the Karag Dum Doomkillers (6/0/4). A primary storyline coming into the match was the absence of Star Ogre, Kolgform Hackchunk, who was injured their previous match with the Doubtsplained Dispoilers. Karag Dum elected to hire Max Spleenrippa in his absence, but the lack of Kolgform can’t be overlooked.

The Beards Belli Bonnlinn received to start the match, and were working their standard offensive strategies when Karag Rat Ogre Warpfang forced everything out of the Beard playbook. By turn two the Rogre had managed to push Horg “The Heavy Thing” into contact with their carrier, with Warpfang only an arm’s length away. The Beards worked to recover and Slayer Arngrimm Addar became the answer, as he’s been all season fighting bigs. He managed to stun Warpfang, but the moment the Beast had recovered he maimed Arngrimm off the pitch. The Beards pressed on attempting to position to take a flank, but in no time at all Warpfang had once again cleared the way, finishing the turn in contact with the carrier, with Horg rumbling in to mark Belli as well. The Beard staff looked on from the sideline grimly, knowing this was not going according to plan. Buck Ballwaen was forced to throw a solo block on Horg, and miraculously dropped the Troll where he stood. Warpfang was blitzed away, and Belli had breathing room to try and solidify the cage closer to the sideline. Warpfang wasn’t done. Karag managed to free him, and the Rogre took out another cage corner and was once again standing nose to nose with Belli Bonnlinn with his menacing tail looming overhead. Again, the Beards knew this was a precarious situation as several Doomkillers lurked nearby anxious to see Belli dropped. Hurgran Huldek’s number was called, and he dodged away from a mark, and hurled his body into the chest of Warpfang, doing enough to force the Rogre to take a step backward, while Belli seized the moment and sprinted toward the endzone. For the second game in a row, Belli found himself down field with no support, within the reach of the opposition. Karag positioned an assist and brought Lineman Krash on the blitz, but as he approached for the hit Belli threw out a stiff palm to his nose dropping him where he stood. The failed blitz completely changed the tempo of the game. The following turn the Beards managed to free Belli and remove another 2 Doomkillers. Belli scored turn 8. The removals forced Karag to field Max Spleenrippa for turn 8 of the half, getting him ejected the following turn.

The Doomkillers managed to field a squad of 10 for the second half, and attempted to score quickly with a troll throw, but their goblin Grotzag crash landed and wasn’t able to recover from the impact. From there the Beards managed to recover the ball and work their way down the field for a less suspenseful score turn 8 by Hurgran Huldek.

Coach Buck Thoughts:

Sometimes you play well, and sometimes you get lucky. We supremely underestimated the abilities of Warpfang, and he punished us for it as hard as any single player has this season. He made this into a Championship match. The ability of him to push our players around and leave himself or his pushing buddy Horg near our carrier was incredibly effective. There were so many instances in this match where we shouldn’t have gotten away with the things we did, but you gotta be proud of the guys for making the plays they needed to when they needed to make them. There was a big momentum shift too once Belli stood his ground against that blitz. It was like our guys got a shot of adrenaline, while their crew started to lose hope. That shift started to show up as we saw more and more of the Kurgran crew head to the sidelines. Again, proud of the guys, and not looking forward to the next time we have to face Warpfang and Horg. Lucky we didn’t have the chance to meet Kolgform yet.
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