Friday, April 12, 2019

An Overcast Day and a Final Practice Before the Hammers Game


Thursday, 11 April, 2019

An overcast day and the impending arrival of a house guest for the next week meant that I needed to tend to the Villa Skorpion II's cleaning.

But still, there was news from the world of Italian DII American football.

 The 2019 Italian Season's
first DII rankings

To review, there are 19 teams in DII this season divided into three leagues or Groups creatively named Groups A, B and C.

Each of the 19 teams plays an eight game regular season schedule.

Group A, the Skorpions Group, is made up of nine teams who play each other one time.

Groups B and C are each made up of five teams who play each other twice during their regular season schedules

At the end of the regular season, twelve of the nineteen teams will make the playoffs regardless of Group assignments. The top four seeds will be rewarded with playoff byes in the first round of games.

The playoff's dozen will be based on a combination of won-loss record, quality of wins and margins of victory.

At this point of the season, our Skorpions 2-2 record and level of play has earned us the #9 spot in the season's initial rankings.

Our next opponent, the 2-1 Desio Hammers are ranked #8 and after the Easter weekend break, we'll play on the road against the #7 ranked, 3-1 Brescia Bengals.

Our destiny is in our own hands.

 Temptations at Pasticceria Marabelli

I was strong and limited myself to my usual cappuccino and brioche.

 A typical Italian lane near
the Esselunga Supermarket

 La Gazetta dello Sport
can be artsy at times, especially
during bicycle racing season

I always love the bright colors
of the fresh spices in the market

On to more about American football in Italy . . .

The Hammers posted this good
looking poster about Saturday
night's game in Varese

U15 Flag team warming up
at practice tonight

Our U13, U15 and U17 flag teams have another tournament to play next Sunday, this time at the home of the Cernusco Daemons and each team will play two games starting at 9:30 a.m.

Scorpion Prima Squadra players
CB Biondo and LB Lusu conducting
a competitive flag tackling-score drill
with the U13 team

Swivel Hips to a possible TD?

RB Emma vs. LB Alessandro

I love Coach Lusu's most Italian of responses elicited by the possible score by Emma against his Defense.

Then I discovered the Slow-Mo
feature on my iPhone

I was hooked!

Hot blooded Italians

I love how Tanya smiles during
her entire pass rush on this play

The old "step-on-her-foot-
while-I-pull-her-flag" trick

It worked to perfection on this play.

Our Prima Squadra practice was
not as good as I would have liked

Offensively, we were just not sharp tonight and that is a huge concern with the #8 ranked Hammers game now less than 48 hours away.

So True in my opinion

After practice, some of the Skorpions
had a midnight Media Event to attend

YIKES!

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