In the biggest derby played so far in the season, the Wild Boars defeated the Belgrade Vukovi at home 20-14. In front of about a thousand spectators at “Čika Dača” stadium, the Wild Boars survived a bad first half and in the second showed a lot more, and also a lot more than their opponent winning the match deservingly.
Vukovi twice dropped a seven point lead, and conceded the decisive points after their punt attempt was blocked and Vladimir Lazić caught the ball in the end zone, for what proved to be the game`s final points.
The Wild Boars` bad play on offense in the beginning of the match, Vukovi took advantage of after a pass from quarterback Đorđe Đorđević was intercepted by Stefan Stojanović. Andrej Tasić`s pass was caught by Nemanja Petković for his first touchdown of the season. The Boars` poor played continued with a badly executed punt attempt after which Vukovi got the ball inside the Wild Boars 20 yard line. Instead of scoring one more time, they were pushed back because of penalties, and finally missed a field goal attempt. Not long after, Đorđe Đorđević gave everyone a glimpse of his good play later on passing to Mladen Pavlović for a 45 yard score, although with bad play by Vukovi`s defense.
That the Wild Boars better play towards the end of the first half wasn`t just a coincidence proved to be true when Kragujevac opened tha half with a drive inside the Vukovi 20 yard line, but a false start penalty on 4th down pushed them back for an eventual missed field goal attempt. Vukovi punished that mistake very quickly, Ðndrej Tasić passed to his brother Pavle, after which the speedy wide receiver escaped a tackler and outran the rest of the Wild Boars defense around him for a 65 yard touchdown.
Vukovi didn`t threaten the home teams end zone until late in the game, but the Wild Boars equalized on their next drive. The Boars very successful drive was finished off by running back Aleksandar Ristić for a 7 yard score.
After the Wild Boars scored one more time, and soon after stopped Vukovi again it seemed they wouldn`t have much trouble bringing the game to an end. But Žarko Đorđević, who replaced the injured Đorđe at quarterback, in his first pass attempt he through the ball in the hands of Miloš Todorović. And not only that, with two reckless penalties that gave Vukovi another 30 yards, the Belgrade team went across midfield, and soon pushed it`s way inside the Kragujevac 20 yard line. With a little over two minutes, Igor Nedeljković dropped a pass all alone in the end zone to put an end to that drive. Even though Vukovi got the ball back one more time with 56 seconds on the clock they failed to do anything, with Tasić`s desperation attempt when the time already expired was intercepted.
“I think this was the best match so far in the League. The team was motivated and for me it was the decisive factor. I`m not pleased with certain things, to be exact – with penalties that shouldn`t have happened, especially not near the end”, said one of Kragujevac`s better players running back Aleksandar Ristić. In his opinion, the Wild Boars won in part because the team didn`t panic after the defeat from the Dukes: “Everybody was aware that this game wouldn`t decide anything yet when it comes to placing in the top two, and playing in the final game. The players knew it and that`s why they went into the match tension free.”
Nemanja Petković scored his first touchdown for the losing side, but it wasn`t enough. “A real derby, an interesting and uncertain game until the very end, as it was expected. I think we could`ve won, but we made a few mistakes which cost us in the end”, said Petković after the match.