There are many words that could be used to describe Sunday’s game in Belgrade, but the best one would probably be: routine. The Vukovi Belgrade beat the Novi Sad Dukes 50-6 to take their third win of the season.
The Vukovi scored on their first possession and never looked back. They built a 23-6 lead at the end of the first quarter and it was obvious the Dukes didn’t have enough offense to come back. The Dukes quarterback Branko Radošević turned the ball over 4 times on interceptions and their only points came on a 70 yard kickoff return by Marko Đanić. Even then, their extra point attempt was blocked and returned for 2 points by Igor Nedeljković.
Andrej Tasić led the Vukovi on offense in one of his best quarterbacking performances. In one of his few mistakes, he fumbled a snap in the second quarter, but picked up the ball and ran for the first down – it was just a day he almost couldn’t do anything wrong, as he finished with 4 touchdown passes and over 200 yard passing.
Tasić passed to Dejan Cerovac for a 25 yard touchdown and Brandon McDowell scored on a 10 yard and an 80 yard touchdown run. He also caught one in the second quarter but was soon ejected. Just as the Dukes hoped that Đanić’s kickoff return could turn the game around, before conceding 2 more points, their hope – if they had any at that point – about catching up to the Vukovi playing without their best player quickly disappeared. Tasić threw a 35 yard bullet to Mihailo Stefanović to increase the lead to 37-6.
The rest of the game was pure torture, as the Dukes’ offense produced just more turnovers and the Vukovi’s incredible number of penalties even overturned one touchdown. They still scored an additional two times: Mario Lugonja returned a punt 60 yards and Tasić connected with Cerovac on the same pass in the same spot as the one that they opened the game with.
The Vukovi stand at 3-0 and have almost theoretically clinched a playoff berth. The Dukes are a complete opposite 0-3 and they’ll face a big challenge to even get a win. If they do that, maybe there’s some hope they can also make the playoff.