It was raining all day yesterday and even when we got up for the game this morning. Just not a good day, it was wet and sloppy. It was raining all the way up till game time. I was trying to think about the Anderson game from this year, when we whooped em in the rain.
We were also missing some of our key players. Some people played even though they were battling the flu. Our starting middle linebacker, Janne, hurt his shoulder last week. Wide Receiver Juha, was sick and didn't play. Antti went out in the first quarter and is one of our leading receivers.
The Roosters are supposed to be the team to beat in Finland. They have had like 12 Finland championships in a row, except last year when the Trojans shocked em and took the title. The have numbers on their side because they have around 30 guys on the sideline at all times. Sometimes we only have around 12 guys on our sideline. The thing that I have been hearing most is that we have better athletes then they do, however, they are very well coached, disciplined, and love to practice. I heard from one of the guys that they are normally intimidated by the Roosters with their warm-up routine and their numbers. Before the game Rio got everyone fired up by saying some things in Finnish, but I couldn't understand.
On the first play of the game for our offense we, of course, went deep for a TOUCHDOWN. It was about a 60 or 70 yard play to Pekka as he took it up the right sideline. Big thanks to my lineman for giving me plenty of time. Our defense played awesome in the first quarter and made them go 3 and out on their first 3 posessions. On our next drive Teemu fresh off his injury ran it into the endzone. The ball was drenched on the PAT and got messed up so we were up 13-0 real quick. Then the elements caught up to us on the offensive and defensive side and we were down 14-13 at halftime.
The defense still wasn't playing bad, we just got beat deep once for a TD. Thomas recorded his first sack of the season in the first half. Scott was making the crowd 'ohhh' and 'ahhh' with some of his hits. He had one tackle near our sidelines as the QB dumped one to the running back... the running back didn't see him coming and Scott crushed him from behind and they went sliding in the rain about 10 yards. The crowd really liked that one.
At halftime, we made some key adjustments that were stopping us late in the first half. I threw in a few plays of my own at halftime. We got the ball right at half and moved the ball down to inside the twenty, mostly through the air. We couldn't figure out how to get it in the endzone so we settled for a field goal. That put us up 16-14. I can't remember here if the defense held or we got an interception from JP, but we got the ball back. Then we marched down the field, mostly through the air from me to Jukka Satola. It was then topped off by Teemu's short run for a TD. I should also mention that Scott comes in on short situations and goaline as a fullback. He led the way into the endzone on both of Teemu's TDs. That put us up 23-14.
I really don't know where most of the third and fourth quarters went, because the next time I checked there was 5:45 left in the 4th quarter. Somewhere in there, I got sacked for the first time all season. It was quite a bummer, but they came on a safety blitz. The game was pretty much sealed when their QB was picked off by our safety, Seikko, under 2:00 left in the game and we were up 9 points. They still had two timeouts left, so we needed to get at least one more first down. I pretty much called the last drive of the game, by spreading out the defense and running up the middle. Then on 3rd and 5, we ran a play-action pass complete to our TE Klaus. It topped a hell of a day for Klaus too. He is the new TE that just got back from NFL Europe. I don't know how many catches he had, but he will be a huge target for me this year. He's 6'7" 260 lbs. and has great hands for a tight end. This was his first game for us, and he played big getting one sack on defense and coming up with some huge catches.
Needless to say, we beat the Roosters 23-14, and I think we shocked a lot of people including ourselves. We were missing some key players but found a way to win especially through the rainy elements. We still have some room to improve but I can now say that we are definitely on the right track.
I'll have a link to the stats when they come out...