Braunschweig New Yorker Lions Kings Of Europe Again

| American Football | 06/12/2016

The Braunschweig New Yorker Lions from Germany made no mistake in Eurobowl XXX Saturday night. Playing in front of almost 5,000 Austrian fans in the hostile confines of Tirol Stadium in Innsbruck, Austria, the Lions downed the powerful Swarco Raiders 35-21 to capture the Eurobowl championship title for the second year in a row.

Breaking open a 14-14 halftime tie with two third quarter touchdowns the Lions withstood a late Swarco surge and held on to beat the Raiders in a game between Europe’s two heavyweights that went down to the wire and featured both sparkling and physical play from both teams.

Braunschweig head coach Troy Tomlin dug deep into his trick play arsenal, first pulling out a 72 yard flea flicker from running back David McCants to quarterback Grant Enders who threw to wide receiver Niklas Römer to score the first touchdown of the game. Then wide receiver Jan Hilgenfeld faked a reverse and threw to a wide open Römer in the third quarter to give the Lions a 28-14 lead.

Enders managed the game superbly for Braunschweig and scored two touchdowns himself while running back David McCants scored the final touchdown of the game to seal the victory in the last minute of play after Evan Landi had recovered an onside kick.

Big6 - Swarco-Braunschweig action 2016 final

Raiders quarterback Sean Shelton, facing heavy pressure all night, completed just 21 of 41 passes  for 271 yards and two touchdowns but was picked off once. Running back Sandro Platzgummer had a touchdown for the Raiders and receivers Clemens Erlsbacher and Kyle Calllahan also added touchdowns in a game that Swarco still had a chance to win until the final minute.

Down 28-14 with just under two minutes to go, Swarco took over the ball at the Braunschweig 40 yard line following a weak Lions punt and Shelton found Erlsbacher in the end zone from 15 yards out to reduce the deficit to 28-21 with 1:29 remaining. But McCants grabbed the onside kick and weaved his way to the end zone to seal the victory.

This was the second consecutive Eurobowl championship for the New Yorker Lions and the fourth overall for Braunschweig.

Roger Kelly is an editor and a writer for AFI. A former PR Director the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League for 7 years, he now lives in Sweden writing about and scouting American Football throughout the world.