Swarm come oh-so-close to toppling Kings; Rebels pummel Pioneers to clinch third place

It was a weekend that showcased the remarkable development of the two expansion franchises in the Kraft Family IFL as a pair of inspiring performances were produced by both of the league’s first-year clubs, albeit with somewhat different results.

On Friday in the South, the Beersheva Black Swarm played what was undoubtedly their finest game of the season to date, falling just short of their first victory in a 42-40 heartbreaking loss to the Papagaio Jerusalem Kings.

The next night in Modi’in, the host Dancing Camel Pioneers were spanked 36-12 by the Judean Rebels, who, with the triumph, finished their inaugural regular season at 6-4 to wrap up the No. 3 seed and now have a month to prepare for a first-round playoff matchup at home.

Rebels wunderkind Joe Martisius continued to make a strong MVP case for himself, passing for almost 200 yards with 4 TDs and no picks while hitting three different teammates for scores. After back-to-back 13-catch outings, Chris McKinny was ‘held’ to just seven receptions and a pair of touchdowns while Ariel Morgan was a beast on D with two sacks and an interception to go along with his seven tackles.

With the top QB and receiver in the IFL, by the numbers, as well as a more-than-adequate ground game and bend-but-don’t break defense, Judea seems to be peaking just at the right time. Suffice it to say that the Orangemen are NOT an attractive postseason opponent for any of the other six clubs.

And, yes, all six of them are still in playoff contention, even after the Black Swarm fell to 0-8 with the crushing defeat to the Kings on Friday. The IFL postseason structure has six of the seven teams qualifying after the 10-game regular season, with the top two seeds receiving a first-round bye and the 3 and 4 hosting the 6 and 5 seeds, respectively, in the wild-card round for a spot in the semifinals.

While Beersheva still has yet to crack the win column, it was only beaten by six points by the defending-champion Pioneers in the season-opener. If the Swarm can somehow manage to shock the first-place Mike’s Place Tel Aviv Sabres (7-1) in their next contest and Modi’in fails to beat the 6-1 Big Blue Jerusalem Lions in their penultimate game, the season finale between the Pioneers and Black Swarm could see Beersheva snag the last playoff spot with a victory of at least seven points.

And for those that don’t see that as a possibility, Friday’s thriller at the patched-up Neot Lon field should be taken as Exhibit A of what can happen when a team in desperation mode rises to the occasion.

As the stunned Kings players remarked – even in victory mode – after the hard-fought battle, “wow, that was a completely different Beersheva team than the one we faced a few weeks ago!”

With only three or four roster additions, the new-and-improved Swarm attack that exploded for a season-high 40 was more the result of months of dedication and perseverance finally paying dividends. Coming off a week in which the team had four practices to gear up for a playoff push, the entire roster came out with heads full of steam.

Yasha Polyakov took the opening kickoff back 32 yards and two plays later rumbled 18 yards into the endzone to stake the hosts to a 6-0 advantage, their first lead since the second game of the season.

The Kings, playing without their beaten-up top two running backs in Jon Rubin and Leib Bolel, responded with a long 9-play drive of their own to take the lead with a converted David Jesselson TD to begin what quickly turned into a see-saw scoring affair.

Black Swarm QB Koren Cohen, who finished 6-10 with a pair of touchdowns through the air, was also adept at using his feet and he regained a slender 12-8 lead for Beersheva with a 6-yard push for another six points. What was already wild first quarter got even crazier when Eli Boymelgreen raced 59 yards from one end of the field to the other on the ensuing kickoff for his second TD return of the season and a 16-12 Kings’ advantage before things settled down...for a bit, at least.

In a game that featured a total of ZERO combined punts, the chains were consistently moving and the clubs combined for an impressive 22 first downs in addition to the 12 TDs. The Swarm were particularly noteworthy in outgaining an opponent over the course of a game for the first time (by almost 100 yards) and winning the turnover battle (3-2) and the time-of-possession contest.

It was truly an ultra-exciting football game to witness from the sidelines, with the emotions raw and the pressure taut. With neither side able to control the reigns for any sustained period of time, the game remained within 10 points from start to finish, the perfect storm for an objective fan.

Beersheva employed a cadre of shifty running backs – consisting of Roy Bendor, Polyakov, Yair Cohen and Meir Perez – who combined for a stratospheric 235 yards and 30 points on the ground. Perez had three TDs on the day in a Mike’s Place Player of the Game earning performance, and his 14-yard catch-and-run for a score saw the lead trade hands for a fourth time in a 15-minute span. Even after Ari Wasjbort was able to pierce the goalline for a TD just before the half, the Swarm were happy to be in the throngs of a competitive match and weren’t too worried about their four-point deficit heading into the interval.

And they would have been fine if not for being plagued with something that has been the deciding factor on at least seven games throughout the IFL this season. Ultimately, the game came down to the forever underrated two-point conversion rate, with each team scoring the same half dozen TDs, but the Kings out-converting the Swarm 3-2 to account for the margin of victory.

It was a tit-for-tat second half that played itself out right down to the wire with game-breaking officiating calls going both ways and intense, hard-nosed football emerging as the true winner on the day. Each team kept the pressure ratcheted up by continuing to answer one scoring drive after another and before long, the time was winding down and the result remained undecided.

By this time, a veritable mob was gathered along the fence of the field cheering on the hosts and trying to collectively will them to victory. Beersheva felt they were victimized by a phantom facemask infraction leading to a Kings’ TD, but the subsequent conversion was stymied and there was still only eight points separating the clubs with just over two minutes to go.

The Swarm channeled their anger into an iron-willed drive orchestrated by Cohen culminating in a Perez plunge into the house to make it a two-point game. Polyakov had an opportunity to turn the corner and punch it in from three yards out to send the game to overtime, but he was denied at the goalline by Pin Pin Feierman, who made a game-saving tackle to lock up the win and improve the Kings’ record to .500 at 4-4 with two games left on the schedule.

Papagaio was buoyed by its resilient defense, led by Marshall Mullinax’s 15 tackles. While the unit may have given up a lot of points, it made crucial stops when it had to and racked up three sacks and a pair of fumble recoveries. If they can get through this brutal part of their schedule which has them playing three games over the course of 12 days, the Kings – who can earn a home game in the first-round with another win – will be positioned well to take a stab at a championship in just their second year. If they put up 42 points without their top two playmakers, imagine the potential when they get back to full-strength.

On Saturday, the Pioneers seemed to start with some spunk, but the momentum was quickly reversed when the Rebels’ Uria Loberbom recovered a Modi’in fumble after it had taken the opening drive into the red zone.

It was all downhill from there (and not the good kind of downhill!) as Martisius picked apart the Dancing Camel defense en route to the first two TDs of the contest, both on passes to McKinny, who took over the league lead in receiving scores with 11 (although Big Blue’s Idan Yaron already has 10 with 3 games still to play.)

Down 16-0 (with Zack Miller churning out another pair of two-point conversions), Modi’in’s Yotam Kushnir gave the hosts some hope midway through the second quarter with a beautiful spin move to elude two Rebels defenders and crash into the endzone for his first TD of the season.

The Pioneers forced a quick punt from the Judeans and it looked as if the men in blue were poised to score again before the break and eat into the deficit some more. However, the Rebels defense had other plans. Despite a long 21-yard completion to Jason Gosnel, who returned to uniform after missing a large chunk of the season with injury, Modi’in’s drive stalled with 21 seconds remaining, which was evidently too long to leave Martisius.

Big Red calmly brushed aside two errant throws before hitting Matan Goldberg for nine yards and then Miller on a beautifully drawn-up 31-yard scoring strike on the final play of the half for a 24-6 advantage that felt like a punch in the stomach to a slightly dazed Pioneers squad.

When Mordechai Beasley caught a 17-yard TD on the first drive of the third quarter, it opened up a sizeable-enough margin (24 points) to allow Ty Rogers to go into cruise-control with his play-calling and personnel. Yossef Widlan saw most of the carries from there on out, getting to the house for the first time, and Beasley once again came in to spell Martisius with game out of reach. The teams would trade fourth-quarter scores, with Modi’in playing mostly for pride as the final minutes ticked away before they officially fell to 2-6 on the season.

Even with a steadfast disciplined approach on both sides of the ball, plus a particularly punishing defense spearheaded by reigning IFL MVP Assaf Katz (12 tackles and a sack) and an admirable cast of supporting characters, the Pioneers have been stuck in neutral – at best – for most of the season. They now find themselves in the Steelers-like position of still fighting to lock up a spot in the postseason less than 12 months after winning the Israel Bowl. (Well the Steelers didn’t exactly win the Israel Bowl...nor did they qualify for the dance. So we’ll just have to wait and see what transpires)

The Kraft Family IFL now heads down the always intriguing stretch to the playoffs with February flying by. This week sees the Lions and Kings clash in a derby for Jerusalem bragging rights on Thursday evening at 8 p.m. and the Real Housing Haifa Underdogs (4-5) close out their campaign on Saturday night against the Sabres in Holon’s Hapoel Tel Aviv Training Complex.