Curitiba Crocodiles – 27
White Sharkes-Istepos (WSI) – 22
Colegio Forquilhão – São Jose, Santa Catarina
This game lived up to its hype, and then some, with both teams putting points on the board against two of the strongest defenses in the country.
Drew Banks ran for a score, and connected with Rodrigo Coleti for another, while Lucas ‘’Mullet’’ Nascimento and Alexandre Oliveira added rushing touchdowns. Although they scored four touchdowns, being out of the rain for the first time in months, and the addition of some new passing concepts might have kept the Crocodile offense from hitting on all cylinders.
‘’Overall, I don’t think we played our best,’’ said Banks of his teams performance. ‘’We’ve got to get better to get where we want to go this year,’’ he added.
The Crocodile defense got the turnovers they needed, with defensive ends Delmer Zoeschke and Guilherme ‘’Bala’’ Bida forcing fumbles that were recovered by Marcos Rosas and Guilherme Simão, and although WSI quarterback, Igor Clemes, still managed his trademark play-extensions with his feet, but access to his favorite target, Vinicius Zanon, was limited.
‘’I think our key to winning the game was focusing on shutting down Zanon, because he is their do-it-all play,’’ said Crocodile outside linebacker, Leonardo Tomadon, who found himself matched up on Zanon in man coverage multiple times throughout the game.
‘’It is pretty hard to keep Clemes in the pocket. He scrambled a lot, and that’s when he completed his passes. Beyond that, our secondary executed poorly. We gave up some big plays when Clemes was scrambling,’’ added Tomadon.
The Curitiba Crocodile defense has been smothering all season. Here, after massive pressure, Delmer Zoeschke finishes off WSI quarterback, Igor Clemes, for a sack and fumble.
AFI’s take: Against a squad like WSI, a win is a win, but while the Crocodiles should be happy to leave the magic island of Florianapolis with a victory and sole possession of first place in Conferencia Sul, they are right to hold themselves to high expectations, because it will take a lot in their season finale to beat a Timbo T-Rex team that has looked like a juggernaut the last two months.