The Wroclaw Panthers from Poland will try to find the win column in the Central European Football League when they take on Turkey’s Koc Rams Saturday, April 27 in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Rams lost their opening game in the CEFL, dropping a 53-36 decision to Serbia’s Kragujevac Wild Boars. Wroclaw were surprised at home when the Calanda Broncos from Switzerland defeated them 27-3.
In the Rams loss, quarterback David Whipple threw three touchdown passes, two to British receiver Kris Wedderburn and one to Joshua Quezada while both Quezada and Wedderburn scored rushing touchdowns. Mehmet Sarikatipoglu kicked four extra points while Whipple added a two-point conversion.
Whipple will be tough for the Panthers to control as he uses his legs as well as he does his arm. Veteran Panthers players are well aware of Quezada’s abilities as he played for their arch rivals, the Gdynia Seahawks in 2016, gaining 1,037 yards
Wroclaw head coach Val Gunn watched his starting quarterback, Chris Forcier come out of the game against the Broncos with a season-ending should injury and was forced to switch between Bartosz Dziedzic and Janek Wawrzyniak at quarterback and threw in Deante Battle on option plays at times but to no avail. However, for this contest, he has brought in Tony Dawson (Houston Baptist University) who played for Italy’s Firenze Guelfi in 2018. Dawson has not had much time to work with his new team and will be facing a talented Turkish squad.
This will be the first time these two teams meet. They nearly played each other in Wroclaw during the 2016 IFAF Europe Champions League Final Four tournament. but the Rams ended up losing 17-14 to the Milano Seamen in the semifinals, and the Panthers defeated Austria’s Danube Dragons 49-34 and went on to win the entire tournament.
This one is a toss up with two desperate teams badly needing a win to stay in contention.