Miracle in Briarcliff
Amazing Upset on the Flag Football Gridiron
Nelson Soracco
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Appalachian State beat Michigan in college football earlier this fall. The United States beat Russia in the1980 hockey Olympics. Both are considered true underdog stories about "David beating Goliath."
Well, another underdog story has occurred. Only this was on the level of Pace's intramural flag football league.
The story came when the Wet Bandits defeated Death Row 18-8 in a classic "David versus Goliath" setting.
Now, who are these teams exactly?
Death Row is the heavily favored team to win every year in intramural flag football. Their team is filled with Pace Alumni with the majority of team members being former Pace football players. A team member who is not a former Pace football player is Pace's Director of Intramurals Brian Norris. They are reigning champions who haven't lost in over a year coming into this game.
The Wet Bandits are a team consisting of mostly commuter students. They have been around since the fall of 2004 and have always shown promise, except their has never been one game that has defined them.
While Death Row was looking to place the Wet Bandits on their long list of victims, their winning streak would finally end on Oct. 26.
Beginning the game Death Row was looking to put the Wet Bandits on the chopping block early. Norris would catch a short touchdown past that was fired over the Wet Bandits' defense into the end zone.
On the conversion play former Pace football player Erik Hubbard blew right past the Wet Bandits for a two-point conversion giving Death Row an early 8-0 lead.
It was looking grim pretty early for the Wet Bandits at this point but, they were no where near ready to give up.
At this time, Wet Bandits' junior Matt Murray exploded with a burst of energy sending a pass that made a rainbow arc to junior Greg Capone. After receiving Murray's pass, Capone breeze past a member of Death Row to run the ball in for a touchdown making the score 8-6.
The two teams would play great defense until the Wet Bandits drove up the field again. It would end with another touchdown pass from Murray. This time the pass spun like a top into the hands of junior Alex Pandolfi giving the Wet Bandits a surprising 12-8 lead.
In order to keep this lead the Wet Bandits would need some help from their defense. With the help of junior Ryan Salerno the Wet Bandits' defense was spectacular. Salerno, who "played out of his cleats" registered three sacks in the game and Capone added a sack of his own putting enormous pressure on the opposing quarterback.
With the stars aligned the Wet Bandits just had to put the game away. Junior Brian Powers would help end the winning streak of Death Row when he snagged Murray's third touchdown pass of the day. This would put the nail in the coffin for the Wet Bandits bringing the score to 18-8 and winning the game on that note.
Norris, who provided only score for Death Row had these encouraging words for his team after the game, "It's kind of good that we lost. We had this image that we were the best team and that we were unbeatable and we no longer have to keep up with that image".
The Wet Bandits played a remarkable game of flag football giving credit to each individual on the team. Wet Bandits junior Mark Silviotti provided this statement after the game saying, "Emotions were running high and heated. We struggled throughout but in the end we just played better football."
With a great win by the Wet Bandits proves miracles can happen at Pace. The flag football playoffs are just days away, the Wet Bandits gave themselves and all the teams in the playoffs reason to believe that a new champion can be possible this year.
The playoffs kickoff on Nov. 9 and a new champion will be decided on Nov. 10. Pace's champion will win an champions t-shirt and a opportunity to play in a regional flag football tournament held in Maryland.
It sure will be great what happens and maybe a rematch between the two teams will occur in the championship. Congratulations to the Wet Bandits.
2008 Woodie Awards

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