The flag football season resumed over the weekend and the men’s league kicked off at the Ed Bush Stadium in West Bay. The 2011 season has a lot of new faces in new places with each team generally having a completely new line up.
Some of the major roster changes are with Maples Packers, Burger King Panthers and Calabash Farm Soldiers. Maples lost the majority of their key players to a newly formed Cox Lumber Colts; quarterback Kevin Solomon, wide receiver Andrew Frederick and line backers David Nelson and Anton Brown.
There were also crucial losses to the Maples offensive line with departures of Raymond Barnes and Koro Vaka’uta to Hammerhead Pirates and all-around player Richard Campbell who is now with Doghouse Bulldogs.
The Burger King Panthers said goodbye to players such as Selkirk Watler, Ranford Welcome, Baron Solomon and Craig Welcome to the restored Hammerheads Pirates. The Panthers also lost two year starter Ike Ihim who graduated from college this past winter and returned back to the United States.
Calabash Farm Soldiers saw former Pirate players such as Nigel Solomon, Andrew Wisdom, Neville Morgan and Edward Howard depart as they reunited with the Pirates. All of these players were instrumental in the Farm Soldiers’ success and league leading record last season.
The Hammerhead Pirates reunited after breaking up last year and many of the defunct Pirates joined other teams. This led to the league losing a very competitive team that was usually in the mix for the championship.
After a superb season last year the Doghouse Bulldogs have regrouped and will be vying for their first title. Doghouse are a tough team that rely on good defence and smart ball movement. It will be no surprise if Doghouse are in the title game again this season.
With so many players moving around and the addition of two teams to the league, it should be a very entertaining and competitive season.
The Cayman Islands Flag Football Association is not organising a women’s league this season. There is a newly formed association, Cayman Islands Premier Flag Football Association, sorting out the women’s league.
As there are a lot of players moving around, this will impact several teams’ chemistry. However one team that was not phased by all the free agency are last year’s champs, the West Bay Hellcats. They definitely deserve respect as the front runners this season.
There could be more international competition this year following the successful visit of two teams from the Bahamas last year. The Bahamas has invited both a men’s and women’s team to their local flag tournament in October.
CIFFA will organise a Cayman national team for this event. The men’s national team has not competed on an international level since 2009. This has led to a lot of interest from league players. In addition to the Bahamas tournament CIFFA is coordinating a youth national side for a tournament in Boston from 29 July-1 August. This will be the first for the youth national flag team to travel abroad for competition and CIFFA is extremely excited about this opportunity.
2011 players for offence.
Quarter Back: Glenn Duran (Farm Soldiers), Freco Ebanks (Hell Cats)
Wide Receivers: Lesley Harvey (Farm Soldiers), Nigel Solomon (Pirates), Andrew Frederick (Colts), Jon Pump (Bulldogs)
Running Back: Ryan Smith (Panthers)
Offensive Line: Barry Bush (Hell Cats), Alex ‘El Diablo’ Angel (Panthers), Andrew Graham (Farm Soldiers)
2011 players for defence
Safeties: Todd Hazlewood (Bull Dogs), Renford Barnes (Hell Cats)
Corner Backs: Brad Connolly (Colts), Phil Brown (Hell Cats)
Line Backers: Will Peguero (Farm Soldiers), Tito Solomon (Panthers)
Defensive Line: Chester Hurlston (Colts), Damien Barboram (Hell Cats), Paul Chin (Panthers)
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