Korea’s Yonsei University Eagles Win Seoul American Football Association Open Bowl Championship
The Yonsei University Eagles proved too much for the Seoul National University Green Terrors this past weekend, beating them 14-7 in the Seoul (Korea) American Football Association’s Collegiate spring Open Bowl championship game.
This was a rematch of a great game from last year’s regular season. Having experienced a heart aching defeat in the 2014 Seoul Spring League final round, Yonsei University was out for blood this year to prove they are the best team in Seoul. However, the Seoul Nat’l Green Terrors were not going to let them just walk away with it.
The game saw a defensive struggle from the start with the Green Terrors finally striking pay dirt first in the middle of the second period, with BoSung Kang running the ball in from 4 yards out for the game’s first touchdown. The half came to a close with the Green Terrors ahead 7-0 over the Eagles. The Eagles responded after halftime with a touchdown of their own to equalize the game 7-7.
As the fourth quarter started no one was quite sure who would prove victorious. However, with less than three minutes on the clock, Yonsei’s Quarterback Jin IL Kim turned the tables with a 50 yard QB run to secure the go ahead touchdown. The Green Terrors got the ball back but were unable to penetrate the Eagles red zone.
Coach Oh of the Yonsei Eagles was happy about the win:
“We worked on discipline all spring and we got the victory. The Open bowl is open to alumni players to help share their experiences with the college boys, however we choose this year to give the university players the starting positions to help give them more repetitions for the fall regular season. This is why this victory is even better for us, because we did it with only our university guys.”
Road to the Final
In the semifinal match ups, played over the May 24th weekend, four of Seoul’s best collegiate teams faced off against each other. The games were as close as they could get with each winning team getting a scare near the end of the game with the opponents rallying late to try to tie the score.
Last year’s champions, the SKKU Royals fell to the Seoul National Uni Green Terrors 13-7, and last year’s runner ups, the Yonsei University Eagles, secured their place back into the Open Bowl final besting the Korea University Tigers, 20-12.
This set up the final between the Green Terrors and the Eagles.
The Seoul university league will now take their summer break and the regular season will begin in late August.