The Burger King Panthers have quietly produced one of their best flag football campaigns.
With the playoffs for the Digicel Summer League, put on by the Cayman Islands Flag Football Association, starting this Saturday, 22 September, the Panthers have dreams of a national championship.
Players like David ‘Swaggy’ Taylor state Burger King will show their prowess loud and clear at the Ed Bush Field in West Bay.
“We have a 100 per cent chance of winning,” Taylor said. “We are the best team and we’ve shown that to everyone. It doesn’t matter who we play, we can beat anyone that comes.
“The season has gone good, I think it could have gone a little better. Some of the games slipped out of our hands but it was a good experience.”
Burger King crushed the Cox Colts in their regular season finale last Saturday. The Panthers came out of that contest with the third seed and an 8-4 record.
Joining them in the postseason are the 9-3 Club House Bulldogs, 8-3 dms West Bay Hellcats and 7-5 Maples Packers. This Saturday’s games feature the top seeded Bulldogs facing fourth-ranked Maples at 1.30pm with Burger King and dms doing battle at 2.45pm.
While the Hellcats and Packers dominated headlines during the season, the Panthers quietly sported a winning record throughout. Both dms and Maples enjoyed five-game winning streaks this year and promptly went on to lose two straight matches. Burger King defeated both in consecutive weeks as they took down Maples 13-7 on 25 August and dms 9-6 on 1 September.
Brendon Malice is one of Burger King’s team captains and states his side relished having a low profile.
“Overall, we developed a new crew of players, we showed what we can do and we’re focused on the playoffs,” Malice said. “Picking up Chris Lucas at quarterback was huge for us. He felt out the team at first and then made adjustments on offence. We probably scored more points this year than in any year we’ve played.
“Getting Paul Chin back from injury was also good as he is one of the best defensive linemen in the league. We had real team chemistry, we really supported each other. I think in the past, guys fought for playing time. Everyone knows their roles now.”
The statistics show Burger King were a formidable squad all year. They were fourth in offence (scoring 145 points) and third in defence (allowing 98 points). Lucas threw for 12 touchdowns and had only five interceptions, the fewest by a starting quarterback this season with at least five starts.
Simon Rivers was second in the league in receiving with 32 catches and the competition’s best kicker, completing eight out of 14 kicks he attempted. On defence, Malice led the league in interceptions (six) and was fourth in tackles with 26. Chin and Jamuel Dell tied for third in sacks with five apiece.
Malice captained the defence along with lineman Jermaine Sharpe, who doubles as the association president. Lucas and Jonathan Carter were the offensive captains.
Malice states the team had extra motivation in producing those numbers.
“Joshua Pawlik, our head coach, was a great coach who inspired us. His dad was sick and recently passed away and Josh turned to this team and flag football for some comfort. That meant a lot for us.”
Serving Burger King well has been a nucleus of experienced players. Rivers, Malice and Chin are among the holdovers from last season. The Panthers also had new veteran recruits like Lucas, who played for the now-defunct Hammerheads Pirates last year and Taj Haye and Taylor, both coming over from the Colts.
Taylor, who made it to the finals last year with Cox, states Burger King are unique compared to other teams.
“This is my third team in the last five years. I played for Maples for two years, then Cox two years and now the Panthers this year. It’s just different, there are no egos.
“Everyone gels, there’s no arguing or fighting and no beef between players and the coach.”
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