Ten young men with their nine parents and the support from other family members drove down to Baltimore after Saturday's DAC Flag Football games. For most of the families, on average the trip down from Queens NY took about 4 hours to Baltimore. The group after a dozen practices went down to compete in the NFL sponsored Flag Football Baltimore Regional Tournament. The winner of each regional tournament has an opportunity to compete in the NFL's National Flag Football event held at Disney World's Sports complex in Orlando Florida in February 2011. This past Sunday’s regional event was held in M&T Stadium the home of the Baltimore Raven’s.
The day of the tournament started out very nicely with temperatures in the low 60's . At about 7:30am in the morning under beautiful blue skies, thirty three teams gather into the stadium to participate in 3 separate divisions. Our group participated in the 9-11 year old age bracket. A total of 13 teams were entered in this age category. Schedules and uniforms were given out that morning. Our DAC team drew its first game at 10:30am. Our first game was delayed due to the prior game had went into an extended overtime. This extended overtime eventually influenced our game. Our first game versus the “Front Royals” ended in 0-0 tie after regulation. Both teams were very conservative in their game planning as there weren't too many passes down field. Overtime would have been the first team to score but due to their Stadium’s rigid schedule the team who advance the most yardages without an interception wins the game. We winded up with the ball and move only 10 yards down the field. The other team in their only series took the ball and advanced it beyond 10 yards and won the game on that technicality.
The 2nd game started at 12:30pm and determined not to be shut out again, our offense scored 4 touchdowns while our defense held them in check after each of our offensive scores. The final score here was 28-0.
The 3rd game was the deciding factor on whether we advance to the playoffs. This game was also defensive battle between two teams. We eventually scored a touchdown for 7-0 lead. The defense again performed at a very high level and shut out the other squad for the whole game. The defense up to this point threw a shutout for 3 games. The final score was 7-0 as the team advanced into playoffs.
The playoffs began and we encountered a team a little taller and bigger than us. This size difference didn't intimidate us but the proof was in the pudding as they scored on their very first play as our defense gave up our first touchdown of the day. We eventually gave up another touch down on defense. Our offense scored one TD in that game and unfortunately because we were down 14-7 we started taking more risk resulting in our first interception of the day which was returned for a score. The final score in our playoff game was 20-7. The team, the “Raiders” that we lost to eventually won the tournament. http://www.nflflag.com/resources/resource_detail/65
Overall, we were only slightly disappointed because we had a great experience. Coming in 3rd place and being part of the overall event made the 5 hour drive back on a school night much easier! For more information on how you can get involved with a future DAC Flag Football tournament travel team, please don’t hesitate to contact your divisional commissioner or league officials.
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