The Kiel Baltic Hurricanes staged a second-half comeback to defeat the Berlin Rebels 28-24 in sweltering heat in Berlin Saturday and effectively save their season in the German Football League, for now.
Trailing by 15 points at the half, Kiel exploded for 22 second half points while holding the Rebels to a field goal to secure the win and stay in the hunt for a playoff spot halfway through their season. The last time Kiel defeated the Rebels in Berlin before this was in 2015 when they won 27-17.
Quarterback Lenorris Footman threw a touchdown pass to Benedikt Englmann and ran two others in himself while running back Julian Ampaw rushed for one. Footman also scored on a two-point conversion while Tim Albrecht kicked a pair of PATs and Lukas Rehder added a two-point conversion.
For Berlin, Terrell Robinson threw touchdown passes to Hayden Daniels and Jason Harris while Sean Richard scored on a 59 yard run. Philipp Friis Andersen kicked a field goal and three PATs.
Berlin opened the scoring as Richard found a seam and took off, racing 59 yards to give the Rebels a 7-0 lead. The Hurricanes responded early in the second quarter as Footman found Englmann for an 11 yard touchdown pass to reduce the lead to 7-6.
The Kiel defense rose up in the 2nd half Photo: Bettina Bull
Robinson engineered two scoring drives in the second quarter finishing the first one off with a two-yard pass to Daniels to extend the lead to 14-6. Then with the Berlin defense playing well, Robinson struck again, connecting with Harris from 32 yards out giving the Rebels a comfortable 21-6 lead at the half.
Kiel head coach Dan Disch clearly had some words with his team because the Hurricanes came out on a mission in the second half.
First Ampaw finished a drive with a seven yard touchdown run and Albrecht kicked the extra point to draw closer, 21-13.
Anderson kicked a 51 yard field goal to increase the Rebels lead to 24-13, But that was all the scoring Berlin could muster in the second half.
With the Hurricanes defense now stepping up, Footman and the Kiel offense went back to work. On the first possession of the fourth quarter, he scampered 12 yards and then threw a two-point conversion pass to Rehder to close the gap to 24-21.
Midway through the final quarter, Footman did it again, finishing off a drive with a five yard touchdown run. Albrecht kicked the extra point and Kiel had its first lead of the game.
The Rebels had a chance with less than two minutes left, but could not move the ball and Kiel came away with a crucial win.
With the victory, the Hurricanes remain in fifth place in the GFL North, trailing Berlin who have two games in hand.