“Beards Struggle to Draw Against Fiery Flatwoods

In their NWBL Plata Division Debut the Beards met up with the Flatwood Smashers, a team they soundly defeated in the FA Cup only months prior. This time the odds seemed even more stacked in the Beard favor arriving with a heavily developed squad with momentum from their previous match. On the Flatwood side though stood the unassuming #16, Catcher, Cali. As well as their talented thrower, #14, Penelope. Surrounded mainly by rookies, these two were to be the primary weapons of the human squad.

The Beards won the toss and elected to receive, likely pushing the advantage more towards their side. Flatwood elected to keep Cali and Penelope on the sidelines, anticipating the likely casualties to come on the dwarf offensive. Belli Bonnlinn was able to secure the ball behind a wall of teammates and the push began. The Flatwoods were tough though, and although the Beards were able to consistently drop them, they weren’t able to break through the human resolve. A point came when the Beards elected to push the cage, and the Flatwoods responded by aggressively marking up. Coach Buck looked on with a grin on his face, anticipating the bash match to follow, but his grin slowly turned flat, then downward as he watched as his players failed to do any significant damage, and in their efforts they had over extended the cage. Belli was left with limited protection, and the runner elected to drop back with the hope of the boys being able to re-establish the line. As he dropped back though, Coach Buck’s face went from a frown to fury, as he watched Belli stumble over his feet, and bash the back of his head against a bare patch in the turf. Belli fell stunned and the ball rolled from his hands. Flatwood responded with vigor, sprinting into the backfield. The ball was recovered by Flatwood Lineman Luke. The Beards were able to backtrack and protect the position, but Luke wasn’t done. The lineman rose up, attacked from his back, dodged away, recovered the ball, dodged away again. Stumbling and kicking, fighting and scraping off would be Dwarf defenders. Each time the ball and the scrum seemed to bounce closer and closer to the Flatwood endzone. Inches away, he was finally stopped. The Beards lucky to go into the half tied 0-0.

In the second half Cali and Penelope took the field, but the Beards set to work quickly thinning out the Flatwood numbers, while gradually pressing Penelope to make a move. That move came in turn 3, when Penelope attempted a long pass to a breakaway lineman, Lenny. He missed the catch, and it appeared like the opportunity the Beards were hoping for. They managed to quickly screen the ball off, but just as Luke in the 1st half, this time Lenny would not give up. In a similar fashion, Lenny managed to blitz a Beard player over the ball, with the ball taking a Flatwood bounce. Lenny ran over the contested ball, recovered it, and dodged away, sprinting further to pull away from the Beard pursuers. The Beards dropped him the following turn, and had a convoy surrounding the ball now, but this time the heroics of Catcher Cali came into play as she dodged away from her marks, and sprinted the length of half the field, to distract the defenders over Lenny just long enough for him to take a shot at the Beard defender over the ball. He rose up and took him down and had just enough kick to recover the ball and take it into the endzone turn 6.

The Beards received the ball on their turn 6 with an 8 to 11 numbers advantage. They were able to secure the ball and set to work furthering that numbers gap ending the turn up 6 to 11. Flatwood attempted to pursue, but down so many a failed leap over the line by Cali left the way mostly clear for a Turn 8 score by Buck Bellwaen for the draw.

Coach Buck Comments:

“Dang, feels like we really missed an opportunity here. This was a game we’ve looked forward to. We knew that if we could handle Cali and Penelope, we’d likely have a pretty straightforward match. I think we just were out of rhythm. The off-season we may have spent a bit too much time resting on our laurels. Flatwood clearly wasn’t. They were ready. The play by those lineman was outstanding today. They weren’t giving up, no matter how many times we dropped them or how many of our guys we put around them. That final play by Cali too, it’s something that won’t make the stats, but her tying up our guys, allowed Luke to make that final push. Dang...I thought we had umm. Hats off to their squad. They played a solid match. We need to fix some things, and get back to basics. Caging…CAGING! How could we leave Belli out there like that?!…Ahh!...We’ll get better.”
”