Sabres ‘rain’ supreme over Kings

The Mike’s Place Tel Aviv Sabres demonstrated very clearly on Thursday against the Papagaio Jerusalem Kings why they have emerged as the team to beat early on in the Kraft Family IFL 2009/10 season....and it took them, oh, about three minutes to do so.

Playing on the road without arguably their top two offensive stars, the now 4-0 Sabres got a sensational 4-touchdown performance from rookie Evan Reshef and sailed to a 58-22 triumph over the Kings in a watery, bone-soaking affair that highlighted the impressive depth of the ever more dangerous first-place squad.

Minus injured running back and quarterback Tamir Elterman and Alex Trafton – who together had accounted for over 60% of the Sabres’ scoring coming in and were out nursing injuries – the Mike’s Place coaching staff was able to plug in more-than-adequate replacements and tweak its game plan to match the available personnel.

Aside from Reshef ­– who deserves his own article, if not reel, for his sublime showing (which included a first-play-from-scrimmage 45-yard TD reception and a 49-yard punt return for 6 points five downs later) – Hammude Kassas (1 TD, four 2pt conversions) and Yoni Rubin (4-7, 94 yards, 2 TDS, 0 INTS and a 34-yard TD scramble) were both brilliant in the one-sided victory for the red-and-white. On the other side of the ball, Niv Sultan had a colossal game with 17 tackles and Assaf Graif chipped in with a pair of interceptions, tackles and a break up.

The Kings – forced to start a hobbled Jon Rubin at quarterback rather than from the halfback slot, where he is unstoppable – were unable to get their bread-and-butter running game on track in the first half before being quickly overwhelmed by a Sabres’ squad that roared out to a 36-0 lead before settling down to revel in the moment.

While the defeat was certainly humbling for Papagaio (1-3), which came into the contest hoping to establish itself as one of the league front-runners and rebound from a tough four-point loss just five days earlier, the Kings must realize that there is no shame in losing to Tel Aviv these days.

Somewhere between Said Abulafia’s 7-tackle, 1-sack night, Roni Srisuren’s 1 td, 7-tackle effort, Eric Spitzer’s full-out horizontal extension to snare a 45 yard td pass, and a whole other handful of highlights, a definite trend begins to emerge, one that should be somewhat unsettling for the rest of the teams in the IFL.

The Sabres are two or three deep at almost every position and can beat you in every way imaginable. From offense (both run and pass) to defense (both run and pass) to special teams (both kick and defend), Tel Aviv has been superior to its opponents in every game thus far.

While the Kings did have some measure of success in the second half, outscoring Tel Aviv 16-14 and getting a pair of touchdowns from bruising back Leib Bolel in Rubin’s absence, they were simply no match for the Sabres on this night and now have two weeks off before meeting their fellow 1-3 brethren, the Dancing Camel Modi’in Pioneers, on December 31^st in Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv, meanwhile, has a week to prepare for what should be a balls-the-wall battle for first place against the Big Blue Jerusalem Lions (3-0) on Saturday the 26^th in Holon.