Mother's Day win

The DC Breeze won their first match-up against the New Jersey Hammerheads on Mother’s Day, May 12. Both teams entered with a 1-3 record. New Jersey was scheduled to have played Philadelphia the day before, but the game was called due to weather; meaning a more rested team than DC was expecting.

A gusty day at Willie Stewart Stadium didn’t prove to be much of a challenge to the Breeze who came out on offense and took three breaks to start a 4-0 run. The Hammerheads had a cold start in the wind and had a lot of easy drops that turned into a hole they would not escape. After coming down with a big huck to Matthew Tacheron, he found Jibran Mieser open in the end zone to get on the board 4-1 at the eight minute mark in the first.

Following that score came one of the longest points of the game. Spanning three and a half minutes and over six turnovers. The Breeze ran a zone and got the disc back and punched it in much to the Hammerhead’s dismay. Most of DC’s turnover on this point came from throws that were a little careless given the windy conditions. The first quarter would end with two more breaks from the Breeze  up a commanding 7-1.

The second quarter featured the same recipe from DC that put them up so much in the first place taking half 11-4. The tenacity the Breeze had was just not matched from the Hammerheads in the first half. They would come back firing on all cylinders later in the second half to come close as 14-10 at the start of the fourth quarter.

The Hammerheads came up with a lot of D’s as Breeze were putting up some iffy throws. This created a big momentum shift towards New Jersey that even the fan’s were picking up. The DC offensive line finally broke out of a rut in the fourth with  beautiful possession of up lines, in cuts and swings at 9:11 to go up 15-10.

The winds had picked up in the start of the second half but were not much of an issue in the end of the fourth. More deep shots were going up and staying on target. The Breeze started working the clock with three minutes left; and the Hammerheads could not get the fast points they needed. New Jersey had last pull at 1:44 and DC swung out the last few seconds to snag the 4th place spot in the East.

The wind really seemed to be a big factor for the Hammerheads. Drops early set them back and  a second half rally that, perhaps come not being down six,  could have taken the game under their control.

The Breeze were confident throwing in the wind and played with more desire to get the disc back on defense, forcing a lot of turnovers and capitalizing on Hammerhead throw aways. They play the 2-1 Philadelphia Phoenix at home on May 18.

Photo by Kevin Leclaire for Ultiphotos.com