The Burger King Panthers are now a legitimate threat in flag football.
Burger King made their biggest statement of the season with a 9-6 victory over the dms West Bay Hellcats last Saturday at the Ed Bush field in West Bay. The Panthers have improved to 6-4 while the defending six-time champions are 9-2 in the Digicel Summer League, put on by the Cayman Islands Flag Football Association.
Jermaine Sharpe doubles as association president and a Panthers defensive end. He states Burger King are now title contenders.
“I’ve been with the team since inception and I don’t plan on going anywhere,” Sharpe said. “We have a good, excellent chance of making it to the finals. The fact is teams come to watch our games and scout us. That’s our confidence boost right there.”
While the Hellcats and Maples Packers have dominated headlines, Burger King have 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.
Against the Hellcats, Burger King were guided by two-way stars Jonathan Carter (two sacks) and Brendon Malice (a touchdown). Chris Lucas kept his cool in the pocket for the Panthers while Jacob ‘Frecko’ Ebanks had an off game for dms.
The Hellcats, Panthers and Packers all look on target to make the postseason. The Hellcats head into the weekend in first place, a game ahead of the 7-3 Club House Bulldogs. Maples are third at 6-4 while Burger King are fourth with an identical record.
Sharpe states any inconsistent play with his team early on was due to mental mistakes.
“It happens with every team, it’s just confidence gets in the way. A classic example was our first game against Maples (a 20-7 thrashing on 7 July). We had to make crucial plays at crucial times and we had to stop under-estimating people.”
Maples regained their playoff footing with a 33-0 annihilation of the 0-10 PWC Renegades. Barrett Edri steadied the offence from the pocket, connecting with the likes of Leslie Harvey, Christopher Bennett and Jahmas Dunbar. PWC had few positives other than the play of Deepal Patel.
The Packers, like the other frontrunners, will be in action this Saturday, 8 September, at Ed Bush. Club House and dms square off for first place at 1.30pm, Maples tackle the 4-6 Cayman Power Sports and Marine Hurricanes at 2.45pm and the Renegades face Burger King at 4pm.
The Bulldogs, featuring wide receiver Zak Kepner, are coming off a bye while the Hurricanes jumped into fifth place with a 13-2 victory over the 4-7 Cox Colts.
To no surprise, Glenn Duran Jr carried the Hurricanes offence with two rushing touchdowns. For the Colts, Richard Campbell was horrible in the pocket with three interceptions.
Cox are in the midst of a sophomore slump. After making it to last year’s finals in their rookie season, the Colts sit in sixth place with only one win in their last six games.
Colts star and association vice president Brad Conolly states his squad has struggled for a number of reasons.
“The problem with the Colts is we came in with the mind-set that we’re definitely the second best team in the league,” Conolly said. “We came in expecting to do the same thing as last year. We didn’t recruit players and we didn’t lose anyone.
“We started to struggle with people leaving on vacation. With everyone supposed to be back, you should have seen a different team. We didn’t do anything to improve.”
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