Fall 2025 Playoffs, Monday, October 27, 2025

Last Thursday was a beautiful night and we had lots of costumed players at the field for the opening round of the playoffs. There was only one problem: the field lights were not on. We tried to call, but we were unable to reach anyone in the town rec. We waited about 45 minutes to see if they would come on, but they never did. Players ate candy and cake in the dark, and then sadly made the trek back home without being able to play. Keith and I followed up with the Town Rec afterwards. They apologized and let us know the lights would be on for us tonight, and they were.

It was chilly, but we were able to begin the playoffs with 4-seed REDemption facing 1-seed Overnight Oats. REDemption played a lot of zone defense and kept it close. After one turn, Red hucked to Hanz, who made a contested catch between two Oats defenders, and wisely called timeout enabling Red to set up an end zone offensive set. Hanz got the score too. Excellent play. Oats took half up 8-5 (I think). REDemption received the pull to start the second half and scored a hold. They were amping up the pressure with their zone, and Oats struggled on offense. Red scored a couple of breaks on big hucks to MV streaking full field, and they took shots to Ash and others deep that White was able to defend. Red trimmed the Oat lead to only one point, 10-9, but Oats were able to close out the game and hold seed with a 13-10 win. Elliott made some excellent plays on both offense and defense for Oats. Skippy earned high marks for his defense, and Yasu on offense. Faith, Marisa, Kate, Ace and Danica all made key contributions to the win as well. After the game, Kate provided some felt letters and exclamation points for Oats to show some team Halloween spirit, and the team wished Ace a fond farewell.

In the late game, 3-seed Purple Hype started the game with three straight breaks over 2-seed Nauti.  Nauti got some breaks back, but Sammy scored the final point of the half for purple, keeping them in the lead. Hype started the second half on offense, keeping a one- or two-point lead. Both teams were working hard. Tom Santiago scored some points for Nauti. Liam had hard contact with Mirsad in the end zone, resulting in a bloody nose. Please stay safe! Ultimately, Purple Hype was able to hang on and win a competitive game 15-11, breaking seed.

Second round of the playoffs will match REDemption vs Nauti in the early game, and Purple Hype vs Overnight Oats in the late game. If we can play this Thursday, 10/30, we will stick with our double elimination format as currently scheduled. If Thursday is rained out, we will switch to single elimination, which would make Red vs Blue the 3rd place game, and Purple vs White the championship.

A couple of pictures from last night's chilly playoff sidelines. Loving the costumes and spirit!