Ben's First Game

The second game of the season for the Kuovola Indians was a victory, 13-7. This was my first game playing as the season opener was during Trinity College graduation, which I felt obligated to attend. The game in Finland has its similarities and its differences from the level of football I had grown accustomed to in the NESCAC. Athletically I would say it is pretty close. Each team has a decent amount of skill players on both sides of the football that are able to make some good plays. Size and strength wise it is apparent that there is not a whole lot of off season weight training, as is to be expected because the majority of players also have full time employment.

            There is not too much game planning leading up to the games, although we did go a week earlier and watch our opponent, The Helsinki 69ers, play against another team. This meant that it was important to make adjustments during the game to try to stop what the opponents are doing. For me being defensive minded this meant adjusting to formations that I had not seen before. The 69ers had a good amount of success running the football against us, and we were getting out flanked by certain formations. We adjusted the alignment of our linebackers, and this got us some success. It was frustrating for me to see a team successfully run the football, as I was a part of division 3’s #1 rushing defense in the country in 2010.

            That being said we were able to keep the 69ers out of the end zone until the middle of the fourth quarter. Our offense was highlighted by some great passes by our quarterback Nesi Carpelan . We were able to pass the ball effectively all game, but we also had our struggles putting the ball into the end zone. Due to some injuries and a thin roster we put our backup quarterback in at wide receiever. His name is Hank, and he is only 16 years young. He scored his first ever touchdown in the senior league on Saturday on a deep pass from Nesi. Our other score was a reception by fellow American Matt Shepherd on a precise double move in the end zone.

            The 69ers had the ball with a few minutes to go and were moving it down the field fairly effectively. As the clock ticked away they began hail-mary passes, and I knocked down the final one as time expired. To the dismay of the Helsinki players no pass interference was called, but there was a lot of arguing in Finnish going on for about five minutes as the referees tried to figure out what to call. It was difficult throughout the game to argue with the referees, as they cannot understand me. What makes it worse is that I see them make incorrect calls and I can do very little about it, that will take some getting used to as I have been in constant communication with referees during the pass two seasons as captain with the Bantams. That is it for my first game, this Saturday June 11 we play the Vantaa Taft, the only other undefeated team in the league.