The American footballers of the Ritterhude Badgers were not exactly under the best of circumstances when they went into their first top league match after the summer break. On the one hand, there was the usual difficult training situation during the summer holidays, but on the other hand, the league leaders came to their home Moormannskamp for the restart: the Bremerhaven Seahawks, who had inflicted a painful 0:56 defeat on the Badgers in the first leg at the beginning of May.
But at the end of the second leg, looking at the players’ faces, you couldn’t immediately tell who had won the match and who had left the field as a narrow loser. The favorites had once again had the upper hand at the end with a score of 16:9 (9:3), but Badgers head coach Simon Gelhaus made it clear: “I am extremely proud of the performance we showed today.” It was all the more wonderful that this impressive performance was duly honored by over 800 spectators – it’s hard to imagine how bitter another heavy defeat in front of this great crowd would have felt.
The fact that Bremerhaven had a much harder time making offensive moves this time was mainly due to Ritterhude’s strong defense from the start. The clear favorite only managed one field goal attempt, but the guests missed it. On the other hand, the Badgers were able to move the ball well across the field a few times, but had to punt regularly after the third attempt. Bremerhaven then scored a field goal at the start of the second quarter, and in Ritterhude’s first offensive play, the favorites then carried an interception into the Badgers’ end zone. At least the extra point was blocked after this first touchdown, so the score remained 9:0. But the home team also got on the scoreboard before halftime.
Justin Krieb converted a field goal and made it 3:9 at halftime – a more than respectable result when you consider that at the same time in the first leg the score had already been 27:0 for Bremerhaven. Shortly after the restart, the highlight of the game followed, at least from the perspective of the yellow and black team. Evgeny Mazyrin took a pass from Badgers quarterback Ryan Stephens, carried the ball into the Bremerhaven end zone and equalized at 9:9. However, the Gelhaus team missed the interim lead because the point after touchdown (PAT) did not find its way through the goal posts. Nevertheless, the Badgers fans were even able to briefly dream of a big surprise.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough to trip up Bremerhaven.
Badgers head coach Simon Gelhaus
However, Bremerhaven struck back in the same quarter. And since the PAT was also successful after the Seahawks’ second touchdown, the score was now 16:9 for the visitors. “The game went back and forth until the end,” reported Simon Gelhaus. The two strong defense lines prevented any more points in the fourth quarter.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough to trip up Bremerhaven, but if you looked at the players’ faces after the game, we looked more like winners,” the Ritterhude head coach summed up his feelings. The away game in Göttingen is now on Sunday, August 18th. The Ritterhude Badgers celebrated their only win of the season against the Generals. “We all agree that we don’t want to lose another game by a narrow margin. We want to win the last three games,” Simon Gelhaus announced. With similar performances to those against league leaders Bremerhaven, this goal should by no means be presumptuous.
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