“Crown Of Sand VII : Qualifier VII Round 3:

We played a bit of a weird and uncharacteristic game. Both teams seemed to retreat deep into their own zone on multiple occasions to avoid potential Wardancer sacks... Arguably, we let our fear of giving our opponent an 'easy' 1 BD hits vs. our ball carrier scare us into backtracking deep into our own zone, which led to some very challenging situations. In the end, those key situations ended up turning out in our favour allowing us to win the game. In hindsight, we probably played the retreat and pass game more than I think we should have.

On our 1st drive, we retreated back to our goal-line where we were 'safe', but a smart double chain push by our opponent put him in range for a 1 BD potential surf, he rolled block/skulls, bringing our ball carrier to the ground, but thankfully only prone in his TZ.

With what felt like no good options, we decided to blitz a player marking one of our guys in scoring range instead of attempting to hit the player deep in our own end in the TZ of the ball. The risk paid off with a 3+ dodge and 3+ sure handed pickup. We then dodged away, and completed a short pass followed by a hand-off to escape potential disaster and come away with a score.

After bottling up the opponent Wardancer, we forced him to retreat back into his own zone, with some nifty dodging we managed to get a player in his TZ, he retreated yet again and blanketed our thrower who was deep in opponent territory. Thanks to a 9 Ma sprint + surefeet catcher, we managed to get into the Wardancer's TZ and with some 3+, 2+ dodging, we managed a 2 BD hit on the blodged ball carrier with our tackle-less thrower. Fortunately, we rolled a pow and the ball fell into the end zone, which we recovered and scooped up for a 2-0 lead. We managed to hold on to go into the half up 2-0.

We opened the 2nd half with a Blitz, which helped apply some pressure, again forcing our opponent's Wardancer to hog the back line, this time he managed to escape and force the ball deep in our zone. We forced the Wardancer to blitz and leap for a score.

Again, we played the retreat game, and this time it ended poorly. Our opponent got pressure, and covered up our players downfield nicely. Our opponent managed to blitz our ball carrier and recover the ball. He was unable to protect his now ball carrier but he covered the field nicely. We managed to recover the ball but felt compelled to attempt a 4+ pass that could potentially be intercepted to alleviate the pressure. We missed the pass, but it acted as a punt; however, our opponent was able to easy scoop it up and score to tie the game 2-2 with just 2 turns remaining.

With 2 turns left, we again felt the need to play the retreat and passing game. Our blitz was unsuccessful, but somewhat sneakily allowed our 9 Ma Wardancer to get into scoring range with his follow up. We placed 2 other players deeper in scoring range. Our 5 Ag Wardancer was blitzed and KOed, we apothed, expecting OT.

Our opponent overloaded our catcher with bodies making a completion to him nearly impossible. Thankfully, our other Wardancer was just barely in scoring range, but had a side stepper in his TZ. We managed to get a 3 BD hit on him, hoping to knock him down, but at the very least forcing him to side step in such a way so as to avoid a leap attempt. We managed the short pass, the catch in a TZ, and dodged away and went for it twice for the game winning score. Definitely a wild game!”