Panthers and Lowlanders set for rematch in Poland’s LFA championship final

Poland’s Liga Futbolu Amerykańskiego championship game this Saturday pits the 2018 champion Bialystok Lowlanders against the 2017 Polish champions, the Wroclaw Panthers in a rematch of the 2018 final.

Bialystok edged the Panthers 14-13 in the 2018 final winning their first ever Polish title.

To reach this year’s final, the Panthers, playing in the South Conference, finished the eight-game regular season without a loss. They then cruised to an easy 52-6 win over the Gdynia Seahawks in the semifinals.

Bialystok topped the North Conference with a 6-2 record and in the semifinal round shocked the Tychy Falcons, beating them 49-19.

Wroclaw head coach Val Gunn has his team on a roll. After losing quarterback Chris Forcier following the third game of the season in a Central European Football League game against Switzerland’s Calanda Broncos, Gunn signed Tony Dawson to lead the offense and the team has not lost since either in Poland or internationally. In the six domestic and two international games they have averaged almost 50 points a game. In that eight game span, Dawson has 2613 yards of offense (passing/rushing) and 40 touchdowns (17 passing/23 rushing). Combine that with the stingiest defense in Poland (11.4 pts/game) and Wroclaw represents a formidable challenge.

The Lowlanders, under head coach Alex Burdette and with Rex Dausin behind center have also looked good especially in the lopsided semifinal win.  The game was supposed to be close. Tychy had beaten them earlier in the year so the total dominance of Bialystok was a surprise.  Can they bring the same fire and energy to the game against the only other team they have lost to this year, the Panthers? They have the second best defense in the LFA behind Wroclaw allowing 14 points a game. And the offense, while not as spectacular as the Panthers, proved it can be high powered too as evidenced by the lopsided semifinal win.