The Silverhawks earned their first win of the season after beating the Kragujevac Wild Boars 26-19 in Ljubljana. Rok Milek ran for two and passed for one touchdown, while Robert Cochran caught two – enough for a win against the Wild Boars in the teams’ only matchup this season.
Following a close first half in which the visitors had a one point lead after Ivan Milanović scored on a 1 yard run and Rok Milek replied with a 8 yard score and a missed extra point attempt, the Silverhawks stormed back to take the lead for good with a three score third quarter.
The Silverhawks’ starting running back Milek passed to Robert Cochran for a 18 yard touchdown, and with a successful two point conversion the Slovenians were a full touchdown ahead. They struck again quickly, taking advantage of a fumble by Marko Košutić on the ensuing kickoff return; Milek scored again, stretching the lead to 13 after a bad extra point attempt.
Kragujevac’s Milanović reached the end zone once more on a 3 yard run to cut the lead to 7 points after yet another missed extra point, but the Silverhawks stayed two steps infront of their opponent with Cochran’s second touchdown catch, this time from Rok Štamcar. The 2 point attempt failed, and the third quarter ended with Ljubljana leading 26-13.
Late in the fourth quarter, Veljko Petrović broke lose and ran for a 30 yard touchdown, but even though his team got the ball back for one more try, they never made it out of their own half, with Nemanja Trajković being sacked and throwing incompletes to end the game.
“We made a lot of mistakes, but there was also a lot of good play and of course our well deserved win. It was a real joy to watch how the offense moved the chains and than scored a touchdown after touchdown.”, said Ljubljana’s coach Uroš Valant.
“Kragujevac’s players showed to be good, and also good people; the game was fair and we can only wish for more of these type of games”, he added.