A tie?

Yes, the Marbella Sharks tied the Granada Lions 14-14 this past Saturday at their home pitch - Santa Maria de Las Chapas. So you must be thinking, 'Oh, they play NFL rules and no one scored in the overtime period.' Wrong. The higher-ups here in Spain at the LNFA had apparently decided that there is no need for overtime during the regular season. How fitting!

So after 48 minutes of football (I think we play only 12 minute quarters, but I couldn't tell you for certain) the game ended in a draw - what typical Spanish style!

Yes, this is the same team that we beat by 30 a month ago on their home field. So what happened? Well we had our new QB, but unfortunately we were missing about 10 other guys, and anyone who knows football knows that a group of 16 guys, no matter how good, are going to have a tough time against over 30 guys on the opposing team.

The bummer is that we had missed opportunities and didn't score from the red zone a couple times, and were very close to winning. It came down to our defense. We had many guys going both ways, and only 6 of our original 11 starters from the last time we played Granada. There were a lot of things stacked up against us, and we still almost pulled it out.

I personally had one of my best games, but what's it worth when you don't get a win? The line opened up some big holes, and our new 'draw' play worked like magic. I probably rushed for 150 yards on 15-18 carries, but couldn't find the endzone. I did have a two-point conversion that ended up keeping us alive, but we really needed one more score for a win. Defensively, too I played well, but on the whole, we had too many penalties (personal fouls and those damn offisides penalties kill us week after week) and not a single turnover. Unfortunately I busted up my shoulder a bit, but I'll be fine for next week I'm sure.

So after that, it looks like our playoff hopes are gone. We still don't know if we'll be allowed to make up the game against Sueca, and we also need Barcelona to lose or tie their next game which seems unlikely.

Our next game is this Sunday the 28th, in Madrid against the Camioneros and hopefully we'll have more than 16 players... but who knows, road games are tough.

After that, we don't play again until April 17th, so AJ and I are going to Rome for Easter weekend. It should be wild.