There were big plays on both sides, missed opportunities, injuries, and lots of fans, but in the end it was the Goodman’s Bay Spartans that celebrated a thrilling 41-40 come from behind victory over the pennant winning Warriors to capture the first Bahamas Flag Football Association Championship Title on Sunday at the Winton Rugby Pitch.
The Warriors jumped out to an early 13-0 lead in the first half only to see the Spartans and quarterback Jayson Clarke tie the game at 13-13 with less than five minutes to go in the first half.
The second half saw the Warriors behind the arm of quarterback Lemon Garospe jumped out to a three touchdown lead midway through the second, using a potent combination of offense and defense to take a 32-13 lead. At that stage of the game the Warriors were jubilant and ready to celebrate, and even though they reminded each other that the game was not over, their play did not show the same.
The Spartans who all season seem to respond best when their back is against the wall, scored quickly on back-to-back possessions to pull the game to within one touchdown. That is when the Warriors began to melt and started to point the finger at each other.
Quarterback Garospe was getting most of the criticism because he was not finding the open man with the pass, and at times passed the ball when he should have run in order to milk the clock. Then there was the final crucial pass that he through for an interception deep on his own side of the field that saw the Spartans capitalize and took the 41-40 lead with just 35 seconds left on the game clock.
Demoralized and disgusted the Warriors were not able to make anything happen in the last half minute. The Spartans and their fans stormed the field in celebration.
Clarke who is also a member of the leagues’ steering committee was named the MVP. He said,
"Midway through the second half we were a little worried because we threw and interception that allowed them to score and go up by three. What happened was my receivers were not being aggressive enough going after the ball, but after we had a very intense timeout they began to come around."
"Once we started to play our best ball we always had confidence that we could come back and win the game, especially if I was not fighting the battle alone. We kept making plays that allowed us to be able to come back and win by one."
"Next year we have to work on playing better in the first half of games, because if we can play a more dominating first half and execute well, all we would have to do is secure the ball in the second half."
The Spartans finished the regular season with a 5-2 record compared to the Warriors at 6-1.
As he sat on the bench losing quarterback Garospe was asked, where did it go wrong after being in the driver seat late in the game and he responded, "It didn’t go wrong anywhere, they played well. They came back and scored quickly. It’s my fault that I through an interception at the end that gave them pretty good field position, and it caused us. But hey, it was a good game either way."
He said the morale on his team is "alright" and promised that they will add some more plays to their book and be back next year to play hard, "its all about practice," he ended.
Next year the league expects the number of teams to increase from eight to 12.
Below are the final statistics from the championships game.
Goodman’s Bay Spartans
QB – Jayson Clarke – 5 TD’s and
WR – Patrick Lockhart – 4 TD receptions
WR – Javier Bowe – 1 TD reception
CB – Tasman Evans – 1 interception returned for a TD
CB – Carl Rolle – 1 interception
LB – Charles Johnson – 2 sacks
The Warriors
QB – Lemon Garospe – 5 TD’s
WR – Bubba Smith – 4 TD’s receptions
