NCAFA
Minor Football
Orleans Bengals get the better of east end rivals
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online
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Orleans
Bengals running back Chase Burke-Black successfully
converted his team's first touchdown against
the Cumberland Panthers on Saturday which
proved to be the difference in a 13-12. Fred
Sherwin/Photo
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For
years the Orleans Bengals have played second fiddle to
the Cumberland Panthers. It's been a very long time since
the Bengals had the type of success they enjoyed against
their east end rivals on Saturday, beginning with their
mosquito team which narrowly beat their Cumberland counterparts
in a game that ended in controversy.
The
Panthers jumped out to a 12-0 first-half lead on a pair
of touchdowns by Marvyn Larozar and Damien B�langer. Unfortunately
they failed to convert either TD which would end up coming
back to haunt them.
Down,
but not out, the Bengals battled back in the third quarter
which resulted in a touchdown by Peter Sobowale. More
importantly they were able to add a one-point convert
by Chace Burke-Black which would end up being the difference
in the game.
Sobowale
scored again in the fourth quarter to give his team their
first lead of the game.
Trailing
13-12 with less than two minutes remaining, the Panthers
were able to move the ball to the three-yard line before
the Bengals defence came up with the stop of the game.
Still, with time running down, the Panthers had a chance
to use their remaining timeouts to possibly get one last
possession.
Facing
third down with 24.7 seconds left, Bengals QB Nathaniel
Assivero ran the maximum time off the clock before taking
the hand-off with 4.7 seconds left to go and was immediately
smothered by a desperate Panther defence.
As
the stop was made, the clock continued to click down to
0.00. But according to the rules, the clock should have
been stopped with just over two seconds left on the change
of possession which would have allowed the Panthers to
run one last offensive play. Instead, the game was called
and the result stood.
The
Cumberland bench protested, but the referees refused to
listen and the game was awarded to the Bengals.
There
was no such controversy in the peewee game which the Bengals
won 68-0 thanks to an eight touchdown performance by Jeremy
Enyeka who add a pair of two-point converts.
Khalid
Campbell also scored a TD and a two-point convert and
Viktor Iheozor added two additional two-point conver-sions.
It was one of the most lopsided wins by a Bengals team
over their east end rivals in recent memory and improves
the peewee team's record so far this season to a perfect
3-0..
(This
story was made possible thanks to the generous support of
our local business partners.)
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