The last time these two teams meet (during last years CEFL season) it was a very one-sided contest with the visiting CNC Gladiators coming away with a 42 – 0 victory. This time around it was a different story and in the first half it appeared the Cowboys were in control. The new American quarterback, John Thorburn Lydic has greatly improved the Cowboys’ offense.
In the first quarter the Cowboys were the much better team, but ended up down 7 – 6 because of a missed extra point. The Gladiators were able to recover a fumbled punt return close to the Cowboys end zone and a couple plays latter Bernhard Kamber used a 6 yard quarterback sneak for a score and a 7 – 0 lead. Later in the quarter Lydic connected with Gábor Kalovits for the Cowboys TD.
Early in the second quarter the Cowboys were still the better team and capitalized on a Andre Bynoe running TD, who then ran in a successful 2 point conversion to make the score 14 – 7. However, the momentum started to turn as the Gladiators defence tightened up and their offense began to click. A missed field goal by the Gladiators kept the score at 14 – 7 going into half time.
In the second half the Gladiators showed there potential to be a very good team on both sides of the ball, creating turnovers and forcing 4 and outs on defence and scoring 4 touchdowns on offense to score 26 points in the quarter to take control of the game. Bernhard Kamber threw for 3 touchdowns to 3 different receivers (Manuel Houtz, David Hailiman and Chris Carter) while Stefan Probst ran in the other.
The fourth quarter saw another TD pass from Kamber to Hailiman for the last score of the game with a final score of 40 – 14.
The Cowboys showed they have potential to be a contender in this league, but need to play consistent for fourth quarters. While the Gladiators showed they are contenders in this league again this year, but like their opponents, need to put forth a consistent effort from the start of the game, and not wait for the 2nd half to get rolling.