A quarterfinal birth in the EFL was a phenomenal accomplishment for the Crusaders, and it was definitely uncharted territory for this group of guys from a rural town in south central Sweden. We traveled to Graz, Austria on a chartered plane in which members of the team paid out of their pockets in order to have this opportunity, for the love of the game you must be thinking… Correct. Arriving in Graz was met by feelings of nervous energy, mostly because despite the daunting task of playing an organization with much more history in competitive games we felt that we belonged on this stage and also that if we played well we could make history by earning a spot in the last 4 of American Football in Europe. The weather was perfect, sunny skies and warm Austrian air greeted us as we stepped off of our chartered aircraft at the Flughafen Graz. Graz had done a remarkable job of greeting us including one corner of one endzone emblazed with blue and a yellow cross as well as the Swedish flag flying next to the Austrian one across the field from where the players entered.
The game kicked off and we knew we were matching up against one of Europe’s top teams quickly as the Giants scored on a long passing play by their 4th year veteran quarterback Chris Gunn (North Alabama) after just a couple of minutes. As we were headed back the other direction for a rebuttle I incurred a small setback in the form of a hyperextended knee while being tackled after my second catch of the drive. The pain kept me from being able to walk off the field, with assistance I made it to the bench. We scored 2 plays later on an off tackle running play by our Swedish national running back Christian Forsman. The next 15 minutes were sort of a blur, not because of head injury, but because I was trying to find someone in the stadium that knew the proper way to tape a knee with resisting extension. After an Austrian EMT gave it a shot I tried to move, but that wasn’t the ticket, neither was a knee sleeve. Not until our General Manager, Rikard Borg, former running back for the Crusaders came down from the stands did I have the slightest urge to continue playing. He confidently made braces out of flexible tape to ensure that my knee would not continue to extend, thus allowing me to run with minimal pain.
The Giants had scored twice more and we were into the second quarter at this point down 21-6. As I re-entered I found our offense moving the ball quickly down the field in order to catch up until their defense made a huge play.
One Giant in particular LB Gavin Romanick from Western Oregon University, a friend of Jon Apgar's, who you should remember from the 2009 Danube Dragons, played a great game defensively. I caught an Eli Cranor pass over the middle of the field and took off for open pastures. I realized soon after catching and running that I did not have the juice in my legs that I am used to, partly because of the injury, partly because of the 3 rolls of tape on my knee I assume. Gavin caught me from behind and punched the ball from my grasp giving it back to their high powered attack. They moved the ball, as they did most of the first half, with Chris Gunn avoiding our rush and finding receivers open down the field. Scoring again made our trip to Graz seem like a disaster. The Giants were ahead of us 28-6, things were spiraling out of control, and the worst part was that we did not feel that we were an inferior team, but that we were making mistakes and they were playing great football.
At this point Eli went to work. He started surveying the defense with the help of Coach Chris Vicory and implementing a plan that sparked our offense. Eli turned on his second God given abililty, to run with the football. Our offensive line gave him the protection he needed to surpass the first wave of defense and he did the rest by outrunning the second level guys time and again for big chunks of yardage for the remainder of the game. Simultaneously he took a “quit screwing around approach” to our passing game. He said to me, “Go outside, let’s burn em deep.” On a 1st down play I lined up as an outside receiver, and on a go route saw the ball come up sky high and tracked it down in front of a Graz defender for about 45 yards. The next play, wanting to keep up the momentum, Vic called in a double pass that Eli seconded. Our new import, Javid Shoemaker, who played quarterback for the Crusaders from 2005-2007 was the perfect candidate for this double pass.
Eli zipped him a behind the line of scrimmage pass and I raced behind the defense to be covered by just one guy as the ball got put up into the air. Javid gave me the perfect opportunity to make a play despite a defender staying right in the area. He tossed a pop fly that I rose and grabbed regardless of having a pass interference call on the defender for a touchdown, infusing excitement and hope back into the eyes of my teammates. We weren’t able to stop Graz yet again as they went up 34-12 just before halftime, but at this point our offense was rolling.
We instituted a 2 minute drill in which Eli hit a multitude of receivers, quite similar to the before the half drive against Kiel. We neared the endzone when I thought of a play that Eli had put into the gameplan earlier that week which I’ve loved in the past. I offered the idea to him between plays and he called it. I ran a crossing route in which a deep defender came after me from behind. Eli passed the ball on target giving me the chance to stop in place after the catch,
with a spin move made the defender miss at which point I took off for the remaining 12 or so yards to the goal line. Again, a play that would have seen me cruise into the end zone in the past gave me a chance to display my tackle breaking ability because I had to knock into 3 defenders on my way into the endzone. Our halftime score, 34-18.
A halftime defensive approach given to us by our head coach Tracey Gere was to help contain their mobile quarterback by having each of our interior players work harder at their individual responsibilities giving Gunn less areas to move towards. This paid off as he was more pressured and was less able to evade the rush and throw the ball to receivers after they had broken their primary routes. Our defensive front produced several quarterback hurries and even a couple of sacks. Their first half total was cut into 1/5 as they only scored one time in the last 24 minutes. Offensively we scored once in the 4th quarter as Christian Forsman, the 2010 player of the year in Sweden, scored for the second time in the game on a short running play from their goal line. We had other opportunities that did not provide points, an interception on their one yard line as well as a dropped pass on 4th down near their 30 yard line, as well as missing an extra point and every two point conversion were the difference in points in the game. On another day the Crusaders may have been the team to win, but this wasn’t the day.
As a result the Graz Giants move forward to the semi-final of the tournament which will be played later this month. For the Crusaders, our international season is finished, our attention turns to repeating as champions in Sweden. For the remainder of the summer we have 9 more games in the regular season along with a 6 week summer break and a chance to play in the Swedish playoffs, starting this weekend at home against the Arlanda Jets from the Stockholm area.
A swedish report of the game with postgame interviews by myself and Eli can be viewed at this link:
vf.seFootball Austria had great coverage of the game and postgame interviews of myself, Chris Gunn, and Coach Rick Rhoades along with a photo stream of the game can be viewed at:
Carlstad Crusaders at Graz Giants FA.com
