You can spend years watching American football games without ever witnessing with your own eyes what happened in the last 6 seconds of Pirates 1984 – Hogs Vipers Modena.
But let’s start from the beginning. Ready to go and in 2 offensive drives the Pirates in “full blue” outfit are already ahead by 2 possessions thanks to the 2 TD passes of QB Federico Burato who first throws for Filippo Fiammenghi (2 TD passes for him) directly into the Vipers endzone, and immediately afterwards he catches Giacomo Querzola in the WR version who all alone enters the opponent’s endzone for his fourth TD of the season.
High pace from the Ligurians but coach Mauro Solmi slowly and with experience sets up a defense that entered the field and was immediately brutally attacked by the home team, and which little by little makes the home team’s offensive drives become ever shorter and more sterile .
The second quarter has only a field goal by Chiriac of the Hogs Vipers which removes zero from the scoreboard and the second half, which promises to be a real all-out war, begins immediately with 2 injuries for the Pirates’ airline department which further slow down the pace of the home team, who allowed long drives to Modena.
Thus comes the first Vipers touchdown scored by number 17 Giustini, reopening a match that already gave the impression of having changed the script during the course of the game.
For QB Emanuele Daino the main targets are always Corradini but above all Minopoli (2TD passes on the scoresheet for him) who create havoc in the Pirate secondary.
Here comes the first of the two “big plays” of the Ligurians to the pirate’s rescue, who with their safety Stefano Raffaelli report a “2 point conversion” in the Vipers endzone. The number 2 Pirates ran for almost 80 yards and the result at that point continues to smile on coach Giuso Delalba’s franchise.
From here onwards there will be constant pressure from the Emilian offense, thanks to a lack of concentration in the passing game of the Ligurians who for several minutes will remain segregated in their own final 20 yards, the very dangerous red zone.
The pirate black wall resists and stems the damage but again QB Daino and his target 1 Luca Minopoli make yet another 13 yds TD pass directly into the pirate endzone. Another field goal from the precise Chiriac brings the Modena team to plus 10, who wisely start playing with the clock, avoiding unnecessary risks in attack and running with the omnipresent RB La Rocca.
We perceive that to straighten out a match that started well and continued badly for the Pirates, something needs to be changed during the game.
On the edge of the “two minute warning” the Pirates find oxygen with Filippo Fiammenghi’s second TD on a precise 15 yds pass from Burato, and you have the feeling that the match should not be dismissed at all. There are 2 minutes left but that’s the beauty of American football. Those 2 minutes can become eternal and so it happens.
We’re finally there, here we are at those famous final 6 seconds with the Pirates field scoreboard reading 23-26 for the guests.
Another big play is needed, and with more than 50 yds to devour and a few seconds available only a “hail Mary” for the newly entered backup QB Buchi Radu and the 5 “full blue” WRs on the field can change the final outcome of the race. The deployment of the Ligurian offense and the thick coverage of the Modena secondary indicate that this will be the last desperate intention on the pirate’s part.
Thus, after having avoided a sack, QB Radu’s 57 yds cannonball arrives, silence falls on the stands, in the two sidelines people hold their breath while all eyes are focused on the ball in the air that crosses the entire Emilian territory, a defender Vipers handles the ball in order to intercept the spheroid, which remains disastrously in the air and which turns into the most beautiful assists for the Pirates WR Baca Ugalde who in disbelief goes to the endzone for the final 29-26.
The Pirates field that had never stopped believing in its favorites on the pitch explodes, the celebration explodes on the sidelines in the coaching staff and in the front office who are enjoying the first final in the long forty-year history of the 1984 Pirates.
In the post-match interviews, some tears of joy mixed with emotion for the result achieved appear on the tired but happy faces of the president Michele Giacchello, and of the head coach Giuso Delalba who dedicates the victory to his wife Elena and his boys who never gave up in this long season made of victories and sacrifice.
Honor to the Hogs Vipers Modena, who come out amidst the applause of the Pirates field, who, as “underdogs” as often happens in American football, risk the feat of knocking out the strong Pirates and going to play the great dance of Ravenna against the Aquile Ferrara, who on Saturday evening had beaten the strong Bengals Brescia 42-14 at their home.
A continuous crescendo, down after down, which bodes well for the near future of Modena, full of interesting young people.
For the 1984 Pirates, after this 29-26 achieved with heart, now head and concentration for these 2 weeks that separate them from their first historic “Silver Bowl” which will be held on Saturday 6 July at the Bruno Benelli stadium in Ravenna.
They will be the longest and fastest 2 weeks at the same time that the entire Pirates world will experience, recovering from injuries and still working on the playbook, accompanied as always by the lucky main sponsor Natpower H who knows no defeats, and who will direct his sails towards new shores still unexplored for the pirates, those of their first final “grand ball”.
