(c) IFL, Adlai Maschiach

The top two placed teams in the Kraft Family IFL were in action over the weekend, although only one of them exhibited even a semblance of the form that has them leading the Israeli pigskin pack with the regular season rapidly drawing to a close.

On Friday, February 26, in a rain-soaked affair at Kraft Stadium, the Dancing Camel Modi’in Pioneers utterly dominated the host Big Blue Jerusalem Lions 26-2, forcing six turnovers and finally showcasing the relentless, smack down defense that saw the club capture the 2008/09 Israel Bowl the last time it faced Big Blue in the capital.

The next night, in a thankfully dry Purim eve special from Holon, the Mike’s Place Tel Aviv-Jaffa Sabres concluded their campaign in style, improving to 9-1 with a 38-12 rout of the Beersheva Black Swarm, who will be left out of the playoffs but still have one final chance next week to notch a maiden victory in this, their inaugural season.

Tel Aviv-Jaffa, which hosted representatives from the Peres Peace Center at the game, had already clinched the No. 1 seed going in and will now have almost three weeks off to prepare for a semifinal match against a still-unknown opponent.

With the Pioneers’ upset of the Lions, the defending champs locked up the final playoff spot and took Jerusalem out of contention for first place, rendering Saturday’s contest meaningless for both participants – at least from a standings perspective. However, that certainly was not reflected in the intensity of the game, both on the field and from the sidelines, with the Sabres and Swarm going all out to grab the win.

Beersheva continued its recent surge, which has seen the expansion club improve on a weekly basis for almost two months now. If it wasn’t for an early case of butterfingers that plagued the Swarm on their first two possessions – both lost fumbles that resulted in Hammude Kassas touchdown runs – we might have seen a different tone to the game develop.

In fact, the Black Swarm outgained the hosts in total yards and led in time of possession. Piling up 160 yards on the ground and forcing two turnovers, the now 0-9 outfit from the South didn’t fold in the face of an early deficit and were still hitting hard and fighting for every last yard late into the fourth quarter. Quarterback Koren Cohen continued his progression in reading opposing defences, Yasha Polyakov and Roy Bendor formed a formidable double-threat out of the backfield and Shahar Villeval (12 tackles), Sol Fayerman (four tackles and a fumble recovery) and newcomer Michael Silberman (6 tackles) represented the core of a stalwart defensive effort that held the Sabres to nearly 10 points below their season average.

As it were, though, the men in red took full advantage of five bungled Beersheva balls on the night and rode a pair of scores from both Kassas and Sol Rojhani to their fifth straight triumph after a mid-schedule hiccup to the Lions. Tamir Elterman started at quarterback for the Sabres, who have now lost three signal callers to injury or otherwise and needed every ounce of their unmatched depth just to get through their first 10 games.

Still, it seems as if every outing brings another hero from this Tel Aviv-Jaffa squad, which has had a different two or three players rise to the occasion in each of its nine victories. Playing this one without eight previous Player of the Game award winners, the Sabres were powered on defense by the indomitable Yoni Shohet, who racked up nine tackles while putting pressure on Cohen on almost every dropback. As well, Roni Srisuren and Yuval Shapira were much more than just johnnys-on-the-spot on their impressive qaurtet of fumble recoveries, picking up two apiece. Together with Rojhani and Kassas, the three defensive dominators form a handful of teammates who will likely make a late-night beer-and-burger run courtesy of the IFL and their friends at Mike’s Place.

While the Black Swarm tried to pick their spots and make a game of it – and were even given a number of opportunities by an undisciplined Sabres’ effort that led to 79 yards in penalties against – in the end, the five lost fumbles is the glaring stat that jumps off the page when looking at the primary reason for the loss and was simply too much to overcome.

Ultimately, as has been borne out in 29 of 33 games thus far in the IFL this season, football is game that is usually won on the turnover battle, a lesson that Big Blue has learned all too well over their past couple of games.

Friday’s putrid performance from the Lions was quite possibly by some measures the worst display of offensive execution from such a talented bunch of players that the league has ever seen. Yes, the inclement conditions played a role, with the driving rain and sleet wreaking havoc on Itai Ashkenazi’s rhythm, not to mention his handle on the slippery ball. It’s also true that the two-time finalists were still missing veteran heart-and-soul Yonah Mishaan as well as a number of other key injured parts.

The Lions have now lost consecutive games after jumping out to a pace-setting 6-1 start. Over the recent mini-skid, they have turned the ball over an unacceptable 10 times and have lost most of the moxie that was built up in the season’s first three months.

Plainly put, the team has to get back to the most basic of maxims in “taking care of the football.” As cliché as it sounds and as many times as you hear it, the team that wins the turnover battle will likely win the game. Not only does a turnover kill a drive if you lose the ball or start one if you recover it, but it can also reverse the momentum of a game like no other play, instantly changing field position and giving one team a huge advantage over the other.

That’s exactly what happened on Friday, when Asheknazi threw a pick to the Pioneers’ Shai Nemes on the very first offensive play to set up a first-and-goal for the visitors that they would soon convert into a 6-0 lead on a Tal Brown QB keeper, really the only points Modi’in would need.

The Pioneers were intent on taking control of the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and their tenacious tacklers and able-bodied blockers were more than up to task of doing the dirty work in the trenches. William Weinberg (13 tackles) and Niran Haddad (10 tackles) led the way on that front, but they received plenty of help from the entire Dancing Camel roster.

Modi’in’s ball movement wasn’t much better than Jerusalem’s – losing an equal number of fumbles and even gifting the Lions their only two points on an errant snap on a punt attempt deep in their own territory – but on this day it simply didn’t matter. After that blip of a safety, and with the first-half clock winding down, Brown made a gorgeous cut-back at the line before outracing the entire defense 45 yards to the house for a 12-2 lead that the Pioneers would take into the break.

The second half was much of the same, with Modi’in interestingly dictating the pace of play, even without the ball. Jason Gosnel was back in the fold for his second game after an extended injury and he couldn’t be contained as both a linebacker and free safety. His nine tackles, plus a break-up and an interception don’t tell the true story of how much his presence, as the team’s glue guy, means to the entire on-field chemistry of the unit. If he can continue to make an impact, the defending champs instantly take on a different look as an opponent.

Ashkenazi was forced to leave a game for the third time this year in the third quarter with a nundisclosed leg injury after a 2-yard scamper out of bounds and his status remains uncertain. After giving some reps to youngster Maayan Yazdi, Hanan Stern turned to usual lineman Ben Lemberg to come in and finish things off, although his pair of interceptions wasn’t exactly what the coach had in mind.

Kobi Nimrod took in his fifth touchdown of the year in the third quarter and the only completion of the day for the victors on the ensuing conversion – from Uri Schiff to Yehuda Kirschenbaum for the latter’s first-ever points – gave Modi’in a 20-2 advantage, from which it would coast in the fourth quarter to a surprisingly easy victory.

Capping off the “when it rains, it pours” theme of the afternoon, Scott Eisenberg (who had his usual double-digit tackling day at the office) muffed a punt in Big Blue’s endzone in the final minute of the contest. Yoni Milo pounced on top of the live ball for his first touchdown of the season to go along with his six tackles and an interception to earn him co-Mike’s Place Player of the Game honors with teammates Brown and Gosnel.

The Pioneers now have one game left before the playoffs, in Beersheva this Saturday night against the Black Swarm to close out the IFL regular season before an expected crowd which will include local city dignitaries. While the hosts will be treating the match as their Super Bowl to try and salvage a lone victory, Dancing Camel – already assured the sixth seed and a first-round date with the team that finishes in third place – will likely use the opportunity as a tuneup.

They, and the rest of the country, will also have their eyes on the scoreboard for Thursday night’s Jerusalem derby that has wide-spanning implications for the postseason picture. The IFL postseason structure has six of the seven teams qualifying, with the top two seeds receiving a first-round bye and the 3 and 4 hosting the 6 and 5 seeds, respectively, in the wild-card round for a spot in the semifinals.

While Big Blue (6-3) currently occupies second-place, and the Judean Rebels (who finished their season at 6-4) sit in third, a victory by the Papagaio Jerusalem Kings (5-4) over the Lions this week will create a cluster of three teams all tied at 6-4. The complex tie-breaking rules would then force the league to look at the best won-lost-tied percentage in games among all three clubs.

This would have the Kings (who lost to the Rebels but would have beaten Big Blue twice) leapfrog both teams into the No. 2 seed and give them the coveted week off and free trip to the semis. In such a scenario, the Lions (who would have beaten the Rebels twice but would have lost to the Kings twice) would fall to third place and host Modi’in once again in a daunting wildcard match, while the Rebels (who have beaten the Kings in the clubs’ only meeting but also lost twice to the Lions) would drop down to fourth and face the Real Housing Haifa Underdogs (4-6) for the last spot in the semis. If Big Blue beats Papagaio on Thursday, all remains as it currently stands and the Lions would get the bye, while the Rebels and Kings would host the Pioneers and Underdogs, respectively.