Categories: Co-EdFallWomen's

The Knockout Round Begins: Some Teams Have Two Lives, Others Only One

The Fall Cup regular season is now officially over and the Knockout round has begun! Co-Ed 2 already kick started the Complementary Divisions on Monday night in St-Laurent and Stade de Montreal. We will take a look back at what happened then and take a look forward, particularly with Co-Ed 1 where a whopping 6 games will be played in the Laval Dome on Wednesday night this week. Closing off the week on Saturday is the Wild-Card round in the Women’s division, with both afternoon games in the Stinger Dome and an evening game in Brossard.

Without further ado, this article will dive into the knockout round action from Monday night, with a recap of what happened in the Co-Ed 2 Knockout rounds.

Co-Ed 2 Wild-Card Recap

A rematch of a few Free Agents

Both teams began their playoff run with a great start, as both teams were able to find the endzone on their first drive. Free Agents No More were able to score a 36-yard TD by Anthony Moustache on 4th down while Free Agents countered with a 34-yard TD on 3rd down from Jason Ludvig. Both teams would exchange another set of TDs with Free Agents converting their 2 point convert to FANO’s XP1 convert. The key play that changed the game though, came in the last few minutes of the first half when Free Agents Quarterback Gabriel Lemonde got a pick 6 on Dallas Odem after he had driven his team inside the Redzone. Following this, FANO was clearly gut-wrenched as they went 4-and-out and did not decide to punt, leaving Lemonde 3 plays to score from 10-yards out and did so in 2 plays. I’m one of the people that will tell you that you should almost never punt, but the punt exists for these exact scenarios: it consumes a play and forces a team to drive 40 yards in 3 or less plays. Because of this, and the way Free Agents were converting 2-point attempts, the pick-6 and no-punt turned into a 16-point swing.

With Free Agents up 2 TD’s at halftime, and FA’s scoring another 8 points on the 1st play of the 2nd half, Free Agents No More dug themselves a hole that was simply too large to climb out of. Not to mention, Free Agents No More apparently had a miscommunication prior to the start of the game, and their second girl couldn’t make it and were therefore stuck playing with 1 girl and 5 players on the field which didn’t help their cause for a comeback.

With the loss, we say goodbye to the Free Agents No More, you are simply… No More. 👋

Free Agents Player of the Game: Gabriel Lemonde

Free Agents No More: Anthony Moustache

Predators Feed on ….

This was one of the two double-elimination games, so the loser of this game didn’t have to worry about packing their FPF bags away for the season. This one will be a Game of the Week™️ from Chris Rivest, so I’ll let his work do most of the talking, but there were a few things to mention. Benjamin Carli didn’t play his best game on Monday night, yet, Balls Deep still managed to make plays when needed and scored TD’s in a timely fashion.

The Predators defense on their side, was strong, with Cesar Garcia-Diaz being a rock for the Predators. He made a ton of plays defensively, reading Carli and making great plays on the ball, whether it resulted in 2 interceptions, a bat down, or simply distracting the receivers of Balls Deep. Not to be forgotten, Roxane Rashidian had herself a couple of nice PD’s in crucial moments of the game, one of which came on 4th down for a pass intended for Steven Fioriti. Both teams had good, but not great offensive outings. What was definitively on display was the athleticism of Balls deep, such as Nathan Vézina‘s elusiveness and speed, causing the Predators defense to miss tackles and lead to YAC yards in bunches. On the other side, Cesar at QB has come a long way from last Fall Cup with his season with the Badgers, as his offensive knowledge and scheming made the game a fun one to watch.

In the end, the game came down to the last play of the game, that, we actually have captured on video! It’s a very close call, however, if you break it down frame-by-frame, the pass is caught in the air by the Balls Deep receiver, who appears to be Will Sebag. It’s hard to tell where exactly he makes the catch, but what you do see is that he lands at, or a few inches away from the white line on the ground. It’s important to note that said white line is NOT the end zone line. At stade de Montreal, that white line is 2 yards away from the other white line which isnt painted all the way to the sideline. If he lands on the white line, the catch in the air likely is made 1 yard before that, making Sebag 1 yard short of the endzone. This is the most likely result of the play, but we will never be as close as the ref position right on the goal line. Either way, as they say, it’s a game of inches, and in the playoffs, every inch is magnified tenfold.

At Least We Tried to Stop the Hurry Up Offense

The hurry-up offense of the TIGRES started with a bang, as Victor Barraza got the game rolling with a 40-yard TD catch on the first play of the game. In a more traditional offense, Darryl Dorcely had his team moving the cones all the way down to the redzone, where two 4-yard completions from Josianne Martin and Carolane Larivière and an incompletion brought it to 4th down, Néstor Chávez batted down a pass intended for Jimmy-Lee Janvier.

After another big chunk of yards gained by Barraza that brought the TIGRES inside the redzone, a false start penalty backed up the TIGRES 5 yards, misleading them, as they thought they could run again. As most of you know, once you are in the redzone, you stay in the redzone for the rest of the drive and can no longer run. Mis-managing that, Nestor was called for an illegal run in the redzone. While Darryl Dorcely is an elite rusher, who can rack up the sacks, Dorcely ended the night with “only” 2, but they were clutch sacks, as one of them came in this drive, backing up the TIGRES another 5 yards to make it 4th and 10 and no-run coming from the dangerous Néstor Chávez. At Least We Tried got their own 4th down stop as Nestor could not connect with Barraza and turned the ball over on downs.

Not only did they get a clutch stop, Dorcely then hit Shelder Valéry down the left sideline on the go route for a 40-bomb TD to tie the game and then connected with Josianne Martin on the XP1 convert to go up 7-6.

TIGRES playing a lot of man/shadow defence, and Dorcely picked it up and sent Josianne Martin on a beautifully run post route that ended with another 6 on the board for ALWT. The convert game was also a clear advantage for At Least We Tried, as they connected on their 2nd of the night to go up 14-12. And following that XP1 convert, Nestor made his first and arguably THE mistake of the night, by throwing a lob over his receiver that Shelder “Shelly” Valéry picked off and brought back to the house.

The other game-changing play of the night was to end the first half and starting the first. With the score 20-18 and At Least We Tried with the ball to end the half, Dorcely once again drove the field with relative ease and scored on the 2nd-to-last play of the half, hitting Jimmy-Lee Janvier, his security blanket for the night, for a 1-yard Touchdown, his first of the night. ALWT then started with the ball to start the half and double-dipped on TIGRES. Carolane Larivière took a 5-6 yard hook, made a defender miss and brought it 37 yards later as she was deflagged by Nestor at the last second. The tackle was huge, as Daniela Flores sacked Dorcely for an 8-yard loss on 1st, then completed a 1-yard pass on 2nd, and an incompletion on 3rd set up a 4th and goal from 10-yards out. Who else but Jimmy-Lee Janvier to convert, as he somehow tucked himself away on the front pylon and was left relatively alone for his 2nd touchdown to put his team up 33-18.

That pretty much iced the game, as TIGRES were chasing the rest of the game and only got as close as 9 points, and even if TIGRES had 5 plays left down 9, Dorcely shut down any chance of a comeback with a 13 yard sack on the last play of the game.

Luckily for TIGRES, their loss is not the end of their season, as they drop down to the single-elimination bracket and await their next opponent on November 27th.

WYD Ballhard?

The last Co-Ed 2 game on Monday night was a defensive battle that saw as many interceptions as there were touchdowns.

Natan Nettel had himself a game, as on the opening drive defensively, he picked off Ankit Singh as Ballhard University had gotten close to the redzone, after converting on 4th down with a 26 yard gain from Rhami Aboud. Not only did Nettel take 6 points off the board, he then caught a 4th down pass of his own, that netted his team 13 yards and a 6-0 lead in the game.

The Ballhard University offense was lackluster on 1st and 2nd down, but would often convert 3rd and 4th down to extend their drives. That said, bad snaps hurt this team on more than one possession, losing a combined 25 yards on snaps sailing over both Singh and Aboud‘s head.

Nettel near the end of the 1st half had a great play on the ball, but in intercepting Singh (for a pick 6), made contact with the receiver as he picked off the Ballhard QB and as a result, was called for pass interference. But on the very next play…. as they say… “ball don’t lie”, he picked off Rhami Aboud on the very next play and brought it all the way to the 3 yard line with 2 plays remaining in the half. Unfortunately, Nav Sharma couldn’t punch it in, as the Ballhard D manned up hard inside the redzone and ending the half up 6-0.

Starting the 2nd half, Tomas Fresco-Giulione made his impact as a rusher, sacking Nav for a 6-yard loss on the first play of the 2nd half. 2 incompletions later, it forced the Step Bro’s to punt the ball *to midfield*. Ballhard finally took advantage of their field position and scored in 1 play with Rhami Aboud dipsy-doodled his way into the endzone.

I liked the next drive from Step Bro’s, as the 9-play drive included a timeout on 3rd down, as Eric Carpanzano saw something he knew his team needed to exploit, likely a biting rusher, as the team went on a double hut out of the timeout, which lead to a 3rd down conversion run that turned into a 1st down. Emma Beisswanger was the clutch receiver on the drive, with her 23 yard scamper downfield. After forcing the ball to Natan Nettel downfield, Sharma drew up a short play for Nettel, as he ran a drag that got them down to the 2-yard line with a great tackle from Loîc Yamako. The last time the Step Bro’s found themselves in the redzone to end the half, Ballhard manned up HARD. I love that Sharma remembered this and instead of trying to connect with his best receiver in Nettel (going up against a Div 3-4 defender), he ran his snapper on a quick out under a drag from the slot ran by Nettel that ended up creating just enough contact to create separation on the rub route for the 2-yard Touchdown to Eric Carpanzano.

That was enough for the offense to put the team ahead, but the defense needed 1 more stop, and between Jordan Carpanzano rushing and batting down consecutive balls down the middle and Natan Nettel with his hat-trick of interceptions, WYD Step Bro’s emerged victorious and eliminated Ballhard University from the Fall Cup.

Ballhard, thanks for playing and see you in the Winter season!

Watch out for smaller articles the rest of the way, with the next one recapping the Co-Ed 1 games from Wednesday night in Laval.

Until next time, cheers!

Iggy Magnets