It was good weather at the capital town of Hungary, when the Budapest Wolves hosted North division rival ASVÖ Gladiators. What was supposed to be a good game, against all game recap clichés turned out to be a good game where the Wolves were simply a better team, winning by a 21 point margin.
First quarter opened with a huge play for Budapest, Krisztián Papp broke loose on the kick off return and scored early. Gladiators had a tough job at the beginning of the game, and after a few series, things got even harder. Péter Cseperkáló found a hole in the Austrian defense and ran for 27 yards, and more importantly, another touchdown for his team.
With 14-0 at end of the first quarter, Glads and their helmsman, Bernhard Kamber, bounced back. They were able to stop the Wolves on defense and their offense made it to the end zone for the first time when Hannes Kamber caught Kamber’s pass in the end zone to make it 14-7.
The Wolves stretched their lead to 14 again with a touchdown catch by Bálint Michaletzky in the 3rd quarter, but the Gladiators responded with one of the more exciting plays in the game, a 62 yard run by Chris Hladich.
Still, it was the best the Gladiators could do, with Yordan passing for one more score this time to a wide open Krisztián Piros to pull the Wolves away for good.
Cseperkalo added one more touchdown and Erdely got on the score sheet as well, with the Josef Rosenecker adding the final points for the Gladiators in the last moments of the game.
“I thought it would be close after our fast start, especially when we started making mistakes. Later we started playing together, more like a team, made less mistakes, then we were playing better”, said Vasyl Yordan, quarterback of the Wolves.
“Problem with this team is that it’s playing a 55 man game with less than 25 players. Injuries can kill a team with many players, but are devastating to a team with so little players”, said Chris Hladich, Canadian player on the Gladiators. Playing on the defensive line most of the game, Hladich outran the entire Wolves’ defense with ease on his touchdown run.