The Belo Horizonte Sada Cruzeiro earned their second win of the young season in Brazil’s BFA downing the Flamengo Imperadores from Rio de Janeiro 26-7 this past weekend.
The Cruzeiro took control of the game early, building a 17-0 third quarter lead and then cruising to the win.
Quarterback Alvaro Fadini threw two touchdown passes, one each to Pedro Medici and Victor “Hugo” Mega while running back Well Garcia scored on a 25 yard run. Charslton Ribeiro kicked two field goals and two extra points.
Flamengo quarterback Vitor Paiva threw a touchdown pass to Felipe Cebola and Ariel Faccioli kicked the extra point.
Garcia opened the scoring for Sada Cruzeiro on a 25 yard scamper breaking two tackles en route to the end zone. Medici added a second touchdown late in the first half.
Then, the Belo Horizonte defense stepped up in the third quarter as Ryan David Gomes picked off Paiva to help set up Ribeiro’s first field goal to extend the lead to 17-0.
Trailing 17-0 early in the fourth quarter, Paiva finally connected with Cebola on a fourth down to close the gap to 17-7.
Ribeiro stepped up again though with his second field goal to increase the lead to 20-7. And with less than two minutes left, Fadini hit Mega with a 30 yard touchdown strike to finalize the score at 26-7.
Sada Cruzeiro now leads the Southeast conference of the BFA with two wins. And for the first time in their history, the Flamengo have lost three games in a row, and the Brazilian runners up in 2016, now find themselves winless in 2017 and in last place in the same conference.