Week 8: Panthers 35 Bologna Doves 6

After last week's battle against Corinthia, we returned to IFL play with another big challenge against the Bologna Doves. Unfortunately Andrew, our head coach, was missing as he had to head back to America for the week in order to attend his brother's wedding. It actually turned out to be somewhat of a positive though as everyone pulled together in his absence. My knee was pretty beat up after the last 2 games but I spent the week getting therapy and taking on more of a coaching role during practice. John and I put in a nickel defense to combat the spread offense that Bologna runs while Corey and Danny drew up some good man-beaters as they play Cover 0 almost every snap. This is the first season in Series A for the Doves as they replaced the other Bologna team the Warriors, who had dropped out of the IFL due to a disagreement with the other teams. Despite being their first year in the top league, the Doves were sitting at 4-0 however and were making a lot of noise around the league. They had an Italian QB who was putting up some impressive numbers and 2 American skill guys, one reciever and one runningback, who both played DB as well. They also have a big LB/TE from Syracuse but he was out with an ankle sprain. They managed to pick up a kid from UC Davis (who happened to be traveling around Europe on vacation) to replace him for the week but he was terribly out of shape. 

Come kick off there was actually a pretty good atmosphere at the game as Bologna is a pretty big city and they manage to draw a decent crowd. We kicked off to them to start the game and our D came ready to play. With the help of their center who launched one over the QB's head on second and long, we started with a 3 and out, something we haven't been able to do lately. Our offense struggled to run the ball as they had 7 or 8 in the box every time but given time Danny was able to carve up their man coverage. First he hit Corey for a 15 yard score, then Emma on a deep post, and later Corey again after a few nice runs himself. Our D kept up the pressure and the nickle package worked perfectly as their QB had no idea what was going on. We picked him off 3 times and our D line smothered any attempts to run the ball. Spirits were high towards the end of the second quarter as we were up 3 scores to none but in the waning seconds of the half Danny went down with a pulled hamstring. Luckily it came right before the half so we had some time to regroup but everyone's confidence was blown. We put Corey at QB and planned on running the ball as much as we could to eat up the clock. They almost came back though as they stopped our three runs to open the half and then marched down the field and scored. The scare was only temporary though as we settled down on D didn't let them gain another first down the rest of the game. We actually managed to score twice more as we were aided both times with great field position from turnovers deep in their end. Our fullback, Uma, put one in on a 30 wedge and after Clausch came limping out I went in at tailback and was able to bust one around the right corner and get in, putting the game out of reach. Another big win for us but perhaps at too big a price. We're still pretty beat up right now and with Danny out, it causes a lot of problems for us. 

Sunday we all drove to our team captain Lanzo's house outside of Parma. It was a big old house in the country with a huge indoor fire pit inside of a converted stable. Although the weather wasn't great we made the most of it and had a big indoor bar-b-q. We introduced the Italians to shotgunning beers but most of them got more on their shirts then in their mouths.