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Hanging by a thread

The second week of the fall season brings the first local derby in Budapest and a possibility for one of the sides, the Cowboys to become officially eliminated for the year. Likewise, the Wolves have a chance to secure a playoff spot.

Thus, with two weeks of regular season play still on the schedule, all that would remain to be decided would be which teams would be the number one seed in both conferences. The outlook for the Cowboys seems even bleaker, because it’s out of their hands at this point — if the Vukovi win in Zagreb, even the small theoretical chances will no longer exist.

So as it stands, the game will be more important in terms of settling the score from the Hungarian league. After an undefeated season for both teams, they met in the final where the Wolves overcame a 14 point deficit to win the trophy.

Péter Ádám of the Cowboys said in February that their goal in Hungary is to play the final and in CEFL: “The CEFL is a difficult question. Without experience I would say that the goal is to prove that we belong to this league.”

Despite a rough start, three early and tough losses, it’s safe to say that after three wins in seven games they’ve had a decent year. Like all games this week, it will be played Saturday, at Margaret Island, starting from 5PM, with the Cowboys as the official host.

Despite being close to securing at least the second seed in the South, the team that could eliminate the Cowboys travels to Zagreb, where they’ll play the home Thunder, and months after the biggest drubbing in CEFL ever.

The Vukovi beat the Thunder 77-3 way back in mid-April, but things have somewhat changed in the months since then. Their win still shouldn’t come in question, as they’re battling the Dukes over the conference crown, but it’s also true that they’ve been in steady decline ever since the impressive season opening.

They were eventually first of the three remaining undefeated teams in CEFL to lose a game, and they failed to defend their Serbian league title when they lost fair and square to a former CEFL team in July. Zagreb on the other hand, though still winless, has made steady improvement as the season progressed, and at least it’s hard to imagine them losing by 74 points again.

They meet at NK Prečko field in Zagreb from 4PM.

Riding a six game losing streak, the Ljubljana Silverhawks await the Bratislava Monarhcs, once of the teams they lost to during the streak. Unusually though, out of the six losses, it wasn’t close just twice, meaning four of those were games the point differential didn’t go over 10 points.

One such game was the one in Bratislava, where the Monarchs won 22-12. The Silverhawks are playing for nothing more than pride, having been already eliminated, and the Monarchs will join them if they lose. In a similar situation like the Cowboys, the Monarchs can’t lose any of the two remaining games they have on the schedule, while also hoping the Wolves lose all three.

A tough task, that starts in Ljubljana at NK Jezero field in Medvode from 2PM, and ends in the last week of play when they host the Wolves. By then, it might already be over, but they won’t know until they try.

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