’Dogs rebound to pound Swarm

Real Housing makes a statement after tough defeat with emphatic blowout of ailing Beersheva

The Real Housing Haifa Underdogs wanted to make sure that the rest of the league didn’t forget about them amid the ascension of a number of new-and-improved clubs in the Kraft Family IFL.  Their 68-6 trouncing of the injury-ravaged Beersheva Black Swarm on Friday was a great place to start, although they know it will only get tougher from here.

With two touchdowns through the air and another six on the ground – plus a fair deal of help from an awful Black Swarm snapping display resulting in four self-induced safeties – Haifa resoundingly bounced back from a loss in its previous outing to jump back into the top-of-table fray while improving to 2-1 on the season.

The meeting between the cross-country rivals took place on the brand-new stunning natural grass playing surface in central Beersheva following the last-minute sand-filling fiasco a week prior at the Neot Lon Fields. The beautiful locker rooms with shower facilities – as well as the sweet taste of victory – certainly made the long trek south more palatable to the Underdogs players, who put in an ultra-balanced performance, getting significant contributions from almost everyone on the roster.

The change of venue, alas, did not bring about a change in fortune (just yet) for the now 0-4 expansion Black Swarm. While certain aspects of their program are improving by leaps and bounds on a weekly basis, Beersheva has been beset by injuries, with players falling like flies (excuse the terrible pun!). After sustaining the critical losses of their starting quarterback and running back, respectively, in each the last two games, backup QB Tal Assor was the latest to go down, when he tweaked his ankle while taking an innocent-looking sack on Friday – one of eight on the game for Real Housing, which was able to collapse the pocket all day long.

While frustration is beginning to set in among the ranks of the first-year franchise, the tireless and dedicated coaching staff is instilling the right attitude into the club – one rooted in baby steps and perseverance – and the Swarm will surely get over this rough beginning and turn the corner within a short period of time. It would behoove the team to remember that the start of anything special is never easy; indeed, the reigning Israel Bowl champion Dancing Camel Modi’in Pioneers stumbled badly in their inaugural campaign while the current first-placed Mike’s Place Tel Aviv Sabres put in two years of atrocity before they found the right recipe for success.

The bottom line is that there is still a ton of football to be played and three teams with only one victory to date – that is, only one game up in the win column on Beersheva for the final playoff spot. The Tennessee Titans have just demonstrated in the slightly more prestigious league back West that even a winless opening month is not too deep a hole to dig out of (their loss this week to the super-Colts not dampening an impressive five-game streak.) I’m not saying the Swarm are ready to contend, far from it, but let’s not write them off just yet…they still have ample opportunity to make their mark.

Friday’s showing, however, did not garner high marks at all for the hosts, who were demonstrably overmatched right from the start by a rabid Underdogs team eager to get back to winning ways and avoid falling below .500 for the first time in nearly two years. Coach Jay Armstead had his troops prepared from the opening kick and after Alex Fries recovered a Beersheva fumble on the game’s first drive, Haifa got started on their scoring smorgasbord.

Itamar Levin continued his transition into a top-flight running back with his third touchdown of the season for the game’s first points. Levin rushed for 83 yards in addition to the score and also converted 2-point conversions on three separate occasions to account for six more ticks on the scoreboard in Haifa’s favor. On D, he was a beast, with a team-high seven tackles while providing pressure on the QB ad nauseam. He is one of three Haifa players who will be enjoying a free burger and beer, courtesy of Mike’s Place, for his game-breaking day at the office.

Beersheva’s next drive stalled after two consecutive sacks of Assor by the bruising Real Housing defensive front. Kosta Stolyarsky led the sack-barrage octet with a pair, while Levin (1½), Ariel Primak (1½), Alan Hearn (1), Gal Hochberg (1) and Ben Friedman (1) each got in on the fun. Friedman, who moved back down from the commissioner’s office to the field this year, made a statsheet-stuffing season debut on Friday, with his takedown of Assor, three tackles and a fumble recovery in the win.

Shahar Yeshurun would break free on the first play of Haifa’s next possession for a 28-yard sprint into the endzone and a 14-0 lead, which would be bumped to 16-0 when a bad Beersheva snap went out back of its own endzone for a safety. It was a pattern that would unfortunately repeat itself three more times throughout the game and result in an additional eight points for the victors. While the ill-timed case of ‘bad-snapping syndrome’ didn’t really affect the final result of the lopsided contest, each time the ball sailed over the quarterback’s head was a little more deflating for a Beersheva squad desperate to hang on to any measure of momentum it is able to build and not have drives abruptly halted by avoidable mistakes.

Fries would haul in a 20-yard TD from Roey Ziv, the QB’s longest complete pass of the year, before the first quarter came to a close and extend the visitors’ advantage to 24-0. The 28-year-old from England was all over the place on Friday, catching a pair of touchdowns while also carrying the ball three times for 37 yards and recording five tackles and a fumble recovery on defense. To boot (ha!), he took on the punting duties and returned kickoffs as well in his jack-of-all-trades co-Mike’s Place Player of the Game performance.

It was also impossible to miss the impactful imprint the ageless Arbel Rom stamped on the 42-point victory. The 33-year-old former sprinter from Kibbutz Ein Hashofet gave IFL fans a glimpse of his incendiary speed when he blew by the Black Swarm defense in a blur for a 42-yard TD dash midway through the third quarter. Rom also added a 12-yard scoring scamper in the fourth to cap the scoring and was at his usual best in the kickoff department, getting extra work with eight strikes and three touchbacks. His overall showing was the best he’s displayed in three years in the league and earned him his first Mike’s Place Player of the game co-honors.

The Black Swarm were able to get to the endzone for the first time in two weeks, when an out-of-nowhere Koren Cohen burst through the line for a 21-yd trip to the house to account for the team’s only six points of the game, which at the time cut the score to 26-6. Joining Cohen as rare bright spots on a gloomy afternoon for Beersheva were Shahar Villeval (10 tackles) and Amit Benvenisiti (9 tackles and two fumble recoveries). However, one first down and four total yards of passing, combined with conceding six turnovers, will rarely keep a football team in a game, and Friday was no exception.

Real Housing was even able to absorb three lost fumbles of their own in an otherwise mistake-free performance in which they compiled a franchise-best 427 total net yards (321 rushing) and dominated the time of possession while scoring 34 points in each half. Hearn and Yoav Cohen were the remaining touchdown-scorers for the Underdogs, who took sole possession of third place in the IFL standings with the reaffirming and convincing win, even by expansion-opponent standards.

Beersheva has another chance this week to break through with a maiden victory when it travels to the capital on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. to take on the Big Blue Jerusalem Lions (2-0).  In their last visit to Kraft Stadium, the Black Swarm put up 26 points; if there’s one thing this time of year on the Hebrew calendar has taught us, anything is possible when you squeeze every last drop out of something. That is something to keep in mind as the IFL enters it pre-holiday week of jam-packed action. The Dancing Camel Modi’in Pioneers (1-2) host the Underdogs on Friday morning at 10:30, while Saturday night features the highly-anticipated Channuka Bowl clash between the Judean Rebels (1-2) and Papagaio Jerusalem Kings (1-1) back at Kraft, where the first menorah lights will kick off the night and the beer, latkes and sufganiot will be flowing.