Lions victorious against the Sabres; Lose players to injury.

A win is a win, especially in a season-opener, although the Big Blue Jerusalem Lions wish it didn’t have to come at such a high cost.                                                                                                                                            

Riding a superlative effort from the entire defensive unit and a back-breaking 60-yard interception return for a touchdown on the last play of the first half, the defending-champion Lions opened their Kraft Family IFL 2008/09 regular season on Friday with a 20-14 victory over the Mike’s Place Tel Aviv Sabres at the now-infamous
Baptist Village ankle-graveyard. 

The news from the Big Blue camp was not all rosy, even in triumph, as the team learned on the bus back to Jerusalem that their pair of All-IFL linemen had both suffered broken ankles during the encounter and would be out indefinitely, striking a heavy blow to an already-depleted lineup.  

Avigdor Moore and Ben Lemberg, who both played crucial roles in Friday’s win and have provided endless doses of much-needed veteran leadership over the past two years, fell awkwardly on routine defensive plays due to the uneven, almost hilly, playing surface at the Baptist Village and were taught the hard way that all the conditioning and care in the world is no match for a little undulation in the grass. Their loss will be felt both on and off the field.

The football-parlance term of ‘running downhill’ has always described a running back who aggressively hit the hole, keeping his pads square with the endzone while using his momentum to gain yardage after contact. It was definitely never met to be applied in the literal sense. Although the decision may have come a game too late for Big Blue, the rest of the IFL can be assured that a repeat of Friday’s carnage will not occur, as the league is looking for a new home-field for the Sabres, one that will keep the twists and turns on the sidelines rather than on the playing surface.  

It was doubly unfortunate that the injuries sustained ended up overshadowing what was actually a tightly-played, evenly-matched game between last season’s first and last place teams right from the opening kickoff. 

The Lions began with possession and had four straight positive-yardage downs to put them at 2^nd-and-goal on the Sabres’ 3-yard line and poised for the quick opening strike. However, Big Blue quarterback, Aryeh Bauman, fluttered a pass into the endzone and it was picked off by Tel Aviv’s Shaked Keidar to stem the threat. Keidar, who is a sound tackler and also returns kicks for the Sabres, is only 18-years-old and could be the IFL’s next rising star.  

The rest of the first quarter turned into a defensive standoff as neither side was able to generate enough offense to put any points on the board. This was a far cry from the Sabres’ last game, the 52-40 explosion against the Blue Sun Music Jerusalem Kings two weeks ago in which the scorekeeper had to be substituted for due to exhaustion.

On their first drive of the second quarter, the Lions finally pounced on an opportunity as Bauman made up for his earlier gaffe with a nine-yard touchdown scramble that gave Jerusalem a 6-0 lead. After two more fruitless possessions by each squad, mixed in with a Lemberg fumble recovery for Big Blue, the Sabres managed to march down the field with three consecutive first downs to give them a shot to at least tie the score before half and possibly even take the lead. Quarterback Tamir Elterman was once again at his nimble-footed best for Tel Aviv, running more than 30 yards by himself on what, by all accounts, should have been the game-shifting drive. He finished with 93 yards on the ground for the day.  

However, after a particularly tiring 27-yard jaunt along the sidelines, the 74-kg QB needed a breather and his backup was sent in to try and penetrate Jerusalem’s last line. Instead of taking the typical conservative approach with a new play-caller at the helm and pounding the ball at the defense with the run, the Sabres went for the glory and attempted two passes into the endzone to knot the score. The second throw, a telegraph with no time left on the clock, was deftly intercepted by Big Blue’s Sinai Levy, who was immediately off to the races. In as short a time as it took Levy to run the full length of the field and tie the IFL record for longest TD and INT return, a seismic, game-turning momentum-shift had transpired and the Lions’, ever-fortuitously, went into the interval with a 12-0 advantage. 

Tel Aviv, down but not out, came out with renewed vigor and rallied for a quick touchdown of its own to begin the second half. The ensuing two-point conversion made it a 12-8 affair and all of a sudden it was a nail-biter with every play being of crucial importance. The Sabres continued to try and regain a foothold in the game, even after a 20-yard touchdown pass by Bauman to Amichai Bergman on the Lions’ next drive to restore a two-score lead for Jerusalem at 20-8.  

While they were able to contain the vaunted Big Blue offensive attack, holding it to just three first downs for the game and a paltry one in the second half, the Sabres were unable to produce enough yardage of their own to complete their valiant effort at a comeback. A last-second desperation Hail Mary from Elterman to receiver Liran Hovav for a 34-yard TD was all they would get and it was almost a tease by the football gods to bring them to within six points of Jerusalem and make them wonder what might have been if not for one colossally-poorly-timed turnover. (As per IFL, and NCAA, regulations, the Sabres’ final two-point conversion was nullified, keeping the final 20-14, as the clock had run out and the points had no impact on the outcome of the game.) 

The IFL next gets under way on Thursday, December 4 at Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem with a match between the expansion-Kings (0-0) and the Dancing Camel Modi’in Pioneers (0-1). Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.