@ ITU Hornets

Beating the Yeditepe Eagles with a landslide victory in their last game, the Crows were unable to show the same quality of gameplay and lost 20-6 to the ITU Hornets in their fifth game of the season. Travelling to Istanbul with the smallest game squad in the history of the team due to injuries and low participation in practices, the Crows had the opportunity to watch the Bogazici Sultans - METU Falcons game played at Bogazici University on Saturday, in which two of their teammates took part in as officials. In their own game that took place on Sunday at the artifical turf field in the village of Ayaza?a, the Crows played on artifical turf for the first time. Although there was some worries voiced on the effect of the artificial turf on the play of many Crows players that use steel tipped cleats, trials during pre-game warmups showed that the effect was minimal. There was not many complaints regarding the artificial turf apart from those from players suffering burns during the game due to friction caused during falls. The effect of missing key players and of many players playing on defense, offense and special teams without resting was felt during the game. Also, the officials and both teams experienced difficulty due to the fact that only 3 officials showed up to officialte the game. Facing difficulty on both sides of the ball at the beginning of the game, the Crows warmed up with the start of the second quarter and started showing effective gameplay. Going 6-0 down when the offense was on the field, effective plays by our defense prevented ITU from raising the score. Effective yet scattered passing and rushing plays by the offense was the biggest factor in the Crows not being able to even the score. Making the score 14-0, ITU was not able to disrupt our Team's long pass play to their 1 yard line and after a few plays the Crows pushed through to the ITU endzone to make the score 14-6. Unfortunately interceptions, fumbles and penalties in the fourth quarter stopped our offense from scoring more points. Finally, a misunderstanding led to our team trying and failing to advance the ball from their own 1 yard line on fourth down. Despite a strong effort by our defense, ITU scored another touchdown from there and made the score 20-6. Faced with an opportunity to make it a one-score game in the last few minutes, the Crows were unable to capitalize on this and the game ended with ITU winning 20-6.

Writer: Efe Cem Elçi Photo: Burak Aksoy Translation: Efe Cem Elçi

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