Poland: Tychy Falcons notch big win, Eagles, Seahawks get shutouts

The Tychy Falcons are not behaving like a first year team in Poland’s Topliga. They downed the Białystok Lowlanders last weekend to keep pace with the Warsaw Eagles and Wroclaw Panthers in the upper echelons of the league. The Gdynia Seahawks shut out the Wroclaw Outlaws while the Warsaw Eagles blanked Husaria to remain undefeated.

Gdynia Seahawks 55, Wrocław Outlaws 0 (in Gdynia)

The Gdynia Seahawks got a boost on Saturday from their new quarterback, Joey Bradley, who threw four touchdown passes in a 55-0 home rout of the winless Wrocław Outlaws. Jakub Mazan, Paweł Fabich and Jan Domagała each had a pair of scores for the Seahawks, who evened their record at 2-2. The Outlaws, meanwhile, fell to 0-3 with the loss, and they have yet to score a single point in any of their games this season.

Bradley threw touchdown passes to Mazan and Fabich in the first quarter to put the Seahawks up 14-0, and he found Fabich again in the second quarter for a 32-yard scoring connection that made it 21-0 at halftime. Bradley, taking over at the helm of the Gdynia offense after the departure of Alexander McKean, looked sharp throughout the game in racking up 189 yards through the air. The Seahawks have a bye next week, giving Bradley some extra time to get ready for Gdynia’s big matchup with the undefeated Warsaw Eagles on May 6.

Gdynia scored three times in the third quarter to take all of the drama out of the outcome, with Domagała and Bartosz Chojecki each scoring on one 1-yard runs during that stretch. Mazan returned a punt 56 yards for a score early in the fourth quarter to give him a total of three touchdowns on the afternoon, and Domagała scored from 30 yards out to put Gdynia over the half-century mark. The Outlaws have now given up an average of 52 points a game in 2017.

UP NEXT:
Seahawks (2-2): at Warsaw Eagles (3-0), May 6
Outlaws (0-3): at Tychy Falcons (2-1), April 29

Warsaw Eagles 53, Husaria Szczecin 0 (in Szczecin)

The Warsaw Eagles pulled even with the Wrocław Panthers at the top of the Topliga on Saturday evening, defeating the host Husaria Szczecin 53-0 in a tune-up for their big matchup with the defending champions next weekend. Karol Żak had a hand in five Eagles touchdowns, while Konrad Paszkiewicz scored twice for a defense that recorded its second consecutive shutout. Husaria have now lost all three of the games they have played so far this season.

Konrad Filipiak gave Warsaw a 7-0 lead in the first quarter with a 45-yard touchdown reception, giving the team from the capital all of the points they would need in the contest. The Eagles were certainly not done scoring by any means, however, and they poured on 33 more points in the second quarter to erase any doubt about the outcome. Paszkiewicz scored on a 46-yard interception return and also forced a safety during that stretch, while Ezekiel Graham scored the first of his three touchdowns on a 2-yard run.

Graham caught an 11-yard scoring toss from Żak to finish the first half, a play that was simply a prelude to his 72-yard touchdown reception in the third quarter. Karol Żak’s second touchdown run of the game in the fourth quarter made the margin of victory the biggest in this series so far, a margin that put the Eagles ahead of the Panthers on point differential at this juncture. That will be irrelevant in a week’s time, however, as one of those two teams will come away from their meeting with the outright lead in the Topliga standings.

UP NEXT:
Eagles (3-0): vs. Wrocław Panthers (3-0), April 30
Husaria (0-3): vs. Białystok Lowlanders (1-2), April 29

Tychy Falcons 20, Białystok Lowlanders 17 (in Białystok)

 

The Tychy Falcons battled through surprisingly snowy conditions on Sunday and took advantage of the suspension of Lowlanders quarterback Aaron Knight to come away with their second consecutive victory, a 20-17 triumph in Białystok. The game was one of the closest and most exciting contests of the Topliga season thus far, with the lead changing hands three times and the entire second half played within a margin of one score between the two sides.

Mikołaj Pawlaczyk put Białystok in front early with a 2-yard touchdown run, but Jacek Wróblewski answered right back for the Falcons with a 30-yard touchdown reception. A missed extra point left Tychy trailing 7-6, however, and they fell behind by four points after a Lowlanders field goal closed the first-quarter scoring. Wróblewski used his legs to put Tychy back out in front in the second quarter, going in from 20 yards out to make it 13-10.

Damian Kołpak, filling in for Knight as the Białystok signal caller, trotted into the end zone on a fourth-down play just before halftime to make it 17-13 in favor of the home team. It was a lead that would not last for long after the break, however, as Wróblewski scored for the third time on a 5-yard touchdown run that would prove to be the deciding play of the ball game. The win moved Tychy into third place in the Topliga with a 2-1 record, while the Lowlanders fell to fifth place at 1-2.

UP NEXT:
Lowlanders (1-2): at Husaria Szczecin (0-3), April 29
Falcons (2-1): vs. Wrocław Outlaws (0-3), April 29

TOPLIGA WEEK 5 SCHEDULE:
Saturday, April 29, 4:00 PM: Tychy Falcons (2-1) vs. Wrocław Outlaws (0-3)
Saturday, April 29, 4:30 PM: Husaria Szczecin (0-3) vs. Białystok Lowlanders (1-2)
Sunday, April 30, Time TBA: Warsaw Eagles (3-0) vs. Wrocław Panthers (3-0)