Round 5: Nordmen dominate the Goats

After another win in Kajaani, the Rovaniemi Nordmen took the win at home in a dominating fashion against the Karleby Goats.

The Nordmen had a long 4 week stretch without a home game. A 2 week midsummer break and one away game, the home team came and conquered yet again, and looking good.After the Nordmen decided to receive the opening kickoff, the Nordmen wasted little time with getting their offense going. Hot off his past 2 games, WR/RB Miika Virkki picked up right where he left off yet again; driving the ball down the field ; capping the short, four-play drive with six, quick points. After the failed 2pt conversion, the Nordmen surprised the Goats with an onside kick and got the ball for another offensive drive, but came up short.The Nordmen defense came out a little rusty, the Goats took advantage of this and answered with a 9play scoring drive with a failed 2pt conversion. The Nordmen took over with goodt field position on the Goats 47 yard line and ONE play later, went up by 6 after a 47yd TD by WR/RB Miika Virkki. The Nordmen defense continued to struggle a little, the Goats answered yet again with a solid rushing drive to make it 12-12.

Both offenses stalled for a few drives after a high scoring first minutes. The Nordmen found the rhythm again with whoelse than WR/RB Miika Virkki for a 10yard rush TD, for his 3TD of the game giving the home team the lead yet again.The Nordmen defense woke up after making some adjustments with the lead of DC Ryan Oliveira, these adjustments paid off quickly with a big interception by LB/DB Jorge Huete Bonet. With the pick deep in Goats territory, the offense capitalized again with a one play score, another one for Virkki making the score 24-12 for the home team. The defense really found their rhythm from this point forwards silencing the Goats for multiple drives and helped the offense to get great field position drive after drive. This resulted 57yard scoring drive ending in a 37yard TD pass from QB Lucas Martinez to WR Virkki. The Goats didn’t give up after the score and several stopped drives they managed to score again making the game 32-20. The Nordmen defense kept going hard and stuffed the goats offense for the rest of the game playing well wit the lead of DB Aurelien Germay forcing a fumble and recovered by LB Ryan Oliveira and DE Juhani Kivelä showing is stout tackling abilites. The Nordmen offense kept on going with Virkki scoring yet again and QB Martinez rushing for another to make it 46-20 in the 3rd quarter.

Late in 3rd quarter the QB for the Goats suffered a injury that took I’m out for the rest of the game. This resulted in a rather odd ending to the game. After the injury the head coaches mutually decided to run the clock down for the rest of the game. With no one to replace the injured QB and the game being out of reach the 4th quarter was basically not played, just running the clock down. So all in all the game lasted only 3 quarters and the final score standed at 46-20.

The Nordmen standout was definitely rookie WR/RB Miika Virkki who was unstoppable all game and exploded for a 207yard 6TD game giving him the game MVP. Lets not forget the guys who gave him the opportunities do this, the offensive line with the lead of Taneli “Magic Mike” Koskeniemi came up with another dominating performance.

Here is what HC Jonathan Ashton had to say after the game: ” Its unbelievable how Miika (Virkki) got open, he was unstoppable today. He broke the team record with 6TDs in one game. Ive never experienced a game like that, if they would’ve had to forfeit they’re season would’ve been over. We didn’t want more injuries for either team so we agreed to run the clock down. We could’ve reached 60 points if we played the entire game.”

The Nordmen will host the Pirkkala Spartans this upcoming Saturday for their last regular season game.July 23rd at Susivouti in Rovaniemi. Kick-off is at 4pm with our game sponsor Kylmin Oy!