The 6-5 Marburg Mercenaries, Europe #17, will play host to the 2-8-1 Munich Cowboys Sunday, August 18 in German Football League late round action.
In the first meeting between these two earlier this year, Marburg came away with a 41-29 victory. The Mercenaries sit third in the GFL South while Munich is mired in seventh in the eight team conference.
The Mercenaries are coming off of two straight losses. Last week they dropped a close 22-19 decision to the Allgau Comets and the week before they their lost first game in seven when they were beaten 42-36 by Europe’s number one team, the Schwabisch Hall Unicorns. They scored the most points of any team against the Unicorns this year. They had won six straight going into that game. They had downed the Ingolstadt Dukes 40-33 and the Kirchdorf Wildcats 41-28. They put a walloping on the Stuttgart Scorpions right before the break, beating them 52-14 behind a 377 yards and 5 TD passing game from QB Jake Sullivan. They defeated the Munich Cowboys the week before 41-29 and before that downed the Ingolstadt Dukes 43-14 after notching their first win of the season the week before. It was a big one as they outdueled the Wildcats 55-49. They had dropped their first three games of the year in 2019, losing 52-9 to the defending champion Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns, then 30-21 to the Stuttgart Scorpions and finally 20-14 to the Frankfurt Universe.
Sullivan is playing on a high level and leads the league in passing yardage and average yards per game having thrown for 3,679 yards in nine games, an average of 334.5 yards a game,. Hendrik Schwarz is his leading receiver with 907 yards receiving on 53 receptions. He is averaging 17.1 yards a catch (2nd in GFL) and 82.5 yards a game. Luke Wildung has 51 receptions for 550 yards while Marvin Rutsch has caught 86 passes for 763 yards following back-to-back-to-back 100+ yard games. Against the Comets he had 109, versus Schwabisch Hall 129 yards receiving and against Kirchdorf, 122. Running back Triston McCathem has 653 yards rushing (5th in average with 59.4/game) for the year but he also has 535 yards receiving.
Munich is coming off six losses after a 46-0 drubbing by the Frankfurt Universe. The Cowboys had suffered a 48-14 defeat at the hands of the Schwabiasch Hall Unicorns the week before. Before that, they dropped a 31-24 decision to the Stuttgart Scorpions after losing 19-18 to the Kirchdorf Wildcats which had followed a very tough 21-19 loss to the Scorpions the week before that. The week before they suffered a 41-29 loss to the Marburg Mercenaries following back-to-back wins over the Allgäu Comets, beating them 21-18 and 31-16.
Cowboys QB Brady Bolles may be done for the year after breaking a finger on his throwing hand. His backup, Jari Koperski started in the loss to Frankfurt and will start again today. WR Jaylen Zachery is the league’s top receiver hauling in 100 passes for 1,446 yards and eight touchdowns and if Koperski can find him, Munich will possibly be able to hang in.
