Division D – The Finals

Division D – The Finals

 

D-1

 

Half-A-Stars (1) vs. Outlaws (1)

Journey to the Finals:

I told the guys after our game against Bird Gang that I’ve waited all season for this final article to finally put our squad on the cover. While by no means does it mean anything more than a little bit of pride for our guys, I wanted us to earn it because our expectations were this high. Win or lose on Sunday, it’s been a pleasure playing with everybody on Half-A-Stars and I couldn’t be happier we get to go to the dance together. As an anonymous friend of mine once said, in a recreational football league making the finals ultimately means one thing – we’re all getting our money’s worth and playing in the most amount of games possible. I’m pumped to suit up one last time this season.

Our journey started against the new and improved version of Hurricane SZN which at the time, was probably our toughest game of the season. If one or two plays ended up differently, we may have been on the losing end. It speaks to the depth of our team when we have numerous guys stepping up to make plays, including a big pick-6 to start the game by Kevin Smuda, a few huge contested balls by Chris Malouf and huge plays by Noah Groper on both sides of the ball.

If Hurricane SZN was the hottest team coming into the playoffs, one could argue that Bird Gang was the second hottest team. Both squads turned their season around at the mid-way point and made our lives incredibly difficult. The turning point in our game against Bird Gang was either a huge interception in the back of the endzone by Max Burah, or the fact that we held them pointless on their final drive before the half. Bird Gang would have went up by 8 points and would have really put the pressure on. Nonetheless, Andrew Langburt has been our rock throughout the playoffs, having to deal with two difficult rushers and staying cool under pressure the entire time, making play after play. This last game won’t get much easier either.

For the Outlaws, a team with arguably an even better roster on paper, they’ve had a tough road to the finals as well. With a bye to start off the extra season, they had to shake off some rust and almost faltered against Jordan and Jason Rossie and their Centaures team. The best part about this game is that it showed just how calm, cool and collected Stephen Harripersaud is and that he always seems to be in complete control. He uses his normal attack plan of shoving Kevin Koussaie down your throat until you start to open up a little, and then hits either Isaiah Allard, Shyanne Stewart or Vincent Banjamin behind you.

Next up was the Orange Bowl and their battle with Super Saiyans. We saw a lot of the same from Outlaws but this time, they had the best sideline receiver I’ve seen in a long time in Jonathan Sevtna. Harripersaud just simply cannot overthrow him. The Outlaws kept the game very boring and used Terry Babalis very effectively against Jordan Allard. They are extremely long and agile and make it extremely difficult to find holes to throw into. The game was certainly closer than the score, but don’t get it twisted, Harripersaud had everything under control the entire time.

 

The Matchup:

The biggest, most obvious difference between both of our teams is primarily size. We’re not the smallest team, especially with Smuda and myself, but the Outlaws just have such an abundance of tall, lanky players that take up so much space on the field it becomes extremely difficult to play against them. Especially if you fall behind.

When comparing quarterbacks, you really have a battle between the field general and the mobile quarterback. Harripersaud doesn’t have the strongest arm and Langburt is more comfortable when he’s moving around a little bit – trust me, with all the times I have to evade the rusher, I know. Definitely has the feel of a Peyton Manning against Russell Wilson type game. Harripersaud cleary has the edge in experience here and the fact that they have had a few tougher games this season may actually help them out.

Each team’s core players and depth players are all some of the best at their position in the Division and if you look at our previous matchup, the guys on both sides almost seem to cancel eachother out. Both teams struggled to find a good deal of offense and I think this game will be very similar. It will be tough to gain yards and when either team gets close, they will need to take advantage and not turn the ball over. If we let Isaiah Allard beat us deep or break tackles, we’ll be out of the game in no time and similarly, they’ll be putting a lot of attention on Smuda, especially near the goal line.

The probably on both sides of the ball is that neither team can really focus on one or two guys because any of the 5 receivers can make a big play. I say this with absolute zero disrespect to any of the other teams in the division but it felt like both Half-A-Stars and Outlaws were destined to square off in the finals. What destiny says about the winner is still up in the air, but I guarantee this will be an exciting game that goes down to the wire.

Prediction: N/A

 

D-2

 

Buffalo Wild Wings (2) vs. Les Voyous (3)

Journey to the Finals:

You can certainly call the Buffalo Wild Wings journey in the playoffs so far the Cinderella Story of the division and you can’t help but cheer for these guys. I’ve definitely been pretty critical of them over the years, especially quarterback Tristan Rinaldis, but never in a way that I didn’t want to see them succeed. I’ve played against them personally and have had good games, but I’ve also struggled mightily against their defense similar to Ryan Kharouf this past week. Speaking of, let’s take a quick look at their journey so far.

Starting off the playoffs against The U wasn’t an easy Quarterfinal task but that strong team defense I mentioned came up big for them, forcing Evan Frank into 4 turnovers and never letting The U offense get off the ground. Tristan Rinaldis was smooth all game, distributing the ball evenly and working the clock, keeping the ball away from Nikki Papich and Kyle Pedvis. Guillaume Vezina and Guillaume Renaud-Dumont did the most damage on both sides of the ball which is a common occurrence and they otherwise made things look pretty easy.

Next up, Finessers, and they continued to build momentum from that stellar defense. They rose to the occasion, especially in the red zone against Kharouf, Bachaalani and Suresh and frustrated the Finessers offense. They never let their opponent hit a big play and made them earn every inch, forcing turnovers when there just wasn’t much space to work with near the endzone. Rinaldis only needed to complete 10 passes, 5 of which went for touchdowns and he often took advantage of a short field. His ability to run surprised the Finessers and it’s something that Les Voyous should not take lightly.

On the other side of the field in Brossard on Sunday will be Les Voyous. While one may have suspected them to make the final, they definitely had their work cut out for them as well. In their first game, it took them to win the extra point battle 3-2 for them to advance against a very good Baby Sharks team. Dallaire used the last two games of the regular season to get back into form and he looked dangerous in this game. Pierre-Alexandre Tache was his primary target, especially deep, but otherwise he did a good job using the entire field.

In their second game against The Infantry, they never allowed Sean Semerjian to get comfortable. Their defense went from being full of holes against Baby Sharks, to locking down the two-way player of the year and more importantly, his favorite target. Keeping Rory Semerjian to 2 catches for 15 yards in a playoff game is impressive and they forced The Infantry’s roles players to beat them and the gamble paid off. In this game, it was Raphael Belice and Vincent Laganiere’s turn to go off and lead Les Voyous to victory.

 

The Matchup:

The greatest aspect of both teams is that they don’t have a single player that can beat you, they have several. Taking a look at the quarterback matchup first, while they have similar styles, Tristan’s height and arm strength gives him a little bit of a physical advantage. I like Sebastien Dallaire for the experience and the intangibles of a quarterback though and he has proven that he can step up on a big stage. If it came down to one final play for the win, give me Dallaire over Rinaldis but it’s close.

The supporting cast of both teams are also fairly similar. Not a huge amount of size, both teams give us a trio of wide receivers that are quick and can make plays. Les Voyous won’t be able to shut down just one player like they did with The Infantry, but rather they have a trio of Guillaume’s to worry about. For the Buffalo Wild Wings, we know they’re going to play a tough zone defense and not let you beat them deep because they are confident they can beat you when the zones get a little smaller – in the redzone.

If I had to choose, I’d favour Les Voyous’ offense a little bit, but I give the edge on defense to Buffalo Wild Wings which means we should get quite the chess match for this game. I don’t expect this to be a blowout by any means and for a team to get any kind of control, they’d do well to score at the end of the first half and try to start with the ball in the second half. This matchup has all of the makings to be a 26-25 game with the potential of overtime. As good as the Buffalo Wild Wings run has been, I just think that Les Voyous have been dominant for a longer period of time during the season and I think their game is a little bit more polished all around.

Prediction: Les Voyous 27 – Buffalo Wild Wings 26