The Osos Rivas mounted a second half rally after finding themselves trailing the surprising L’Hospitalet Pioners this past weekend in the Spanish semifinals and went on to defeat the Pioners 36-33 win to reach the Spanish Bowl for the third consecutive year.
A game that on paper seemed like it was destined to go Osos way, was far more difficult as it was clear from the opening kickoff that the Pioners came to play.
On the first drive of the game, L’Hospitalet put the first points on the board as quarterback Alex Garcia found wideout Luder Peres in the end zone. Osos quarterback Russel Tabor responded though throwing a touchdown strike to Edu Perez, tying the game at 7-7 in the early going.
Photo: Lola Morales
The Garcia-Peres connection hit paydirt again for the Pioners in the second quarter giving L’Hospitalet a 13-7 lead. Then Garcia hit Dani Belso to take the score to 19-7 for L’Hospitalet. Not to be outdone, Tabor and Perez combined forces again for Osos to narrow the score to 19-14. Back to the Pioners, who relied on both Garcia brothers to extend the lead to 26-14 just before the break. But Tabor wasn’t going to let the Pioners truly rule the first half as he found Gary Taylor in the endzone before taking it into the endzone himself for the two-point conversion to close the gap to 26-22.
After the halftime whistle, the Osos struck quick and hard, as Andy Vera returned the second half kickoff all the way to give Osos Rivas their first lead of the game, 29-26. Tabor then followed that up with another touchdown pass, this time a 50-yard bomb to Mario Flores, taking the lead to 36-26.
With his team desperate to regain the lead, Garcia found Oriol Adria to get one more touchdown on the board and take the score to manageable 36-33.
As the time ticked down to decide who advances to the Spanish Bowl, the Osos defense rose up and held off L’Hospitalet to punch their ticket to a rematch of last year’s championship game with the Black Demons.