Big Blue pulls out Holyland thriller

Quarterback Kenny Zwiebel walks away with the championship and the game MVP in his last game.

By JERUSALEM POST SPORTS STAFF
Flag Football Champs 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Flag Football Champs 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
In what turned out to be an instant classic of an Holyland Bowl, Big Blue pulled off an amazing 25-24 victory over Derech Etz Chaim on an incredible catch with 14 seconds remaining.
Trailing 24-19 and facing third-and-long with no timeouts and the clock winding down, Big Blue quarterback Kenny Zwiebel let loose a bomb that went half the length of the field, and seemed certain to be knocked down by two D.E.C. defenders until it was grabbed by Big Blue’s Yonatan Halberstadt for the winning score.
Zwiebel walked away with the championship and the game MVP in his last game (barring any Favrian flip-flop).
Another quintessential fixture in American Football in Israel, Yonah Mishaan, also capped a Hall of Fame career by making gamechanging plays on both offense and defense.
His pass-rushing partners, Binyamin Schultz and Aryeh Bauman, also came up with big play after big play on both sides of the ball to help Big Blue secure its seventh title in 21 years.
After not clicking in the first half, Derech Etz Chaim trailed 13-0 at the break.
After the break, though, D.E.C. really hit its stride, going up 24-19 with about a minute left in the game.
After its last TD, D.E.C.
opted to go for two, hoping to stretch the lead to 7, but when the attempt fell short Big Blue found themselves within reach of the win – if they could drive the length of the field in one minute, against a very tough defense.
With experience on its side, Big Blue pulled it out by converting a huge fourth-and-12 play to set up the winner.
In other AFI championship action, the GR Eagles won the Moshiko Bowl, Operation Embrace: Eretz Hatzvi won the Talk‘n’Save Bowl, and Lone Start won the Jerusalem Sports Medicine Bowl.