Jamal Schulters tore up the Topliga during the regular season, running away from the rest of the league with 26 rushing touchdowns, but on Sunday it became apparent that he was saving his best work for the playoffs. The Giants running back scored all five of Wrocław‘s touchdowns in leading his team into Trawnik Producent PLFA SuperFinal VIII in a 35-12 romp over last year’s national champions, the Gdynia Seahawks.
The Giants took a while to get into gear, possibly due to the long trip north, but once they got moving there was nothing the Seahawks could do to stop Schulters. The Seahawks actually scored first, going ahead 6-0 when Schulters’s counterpart, formal PLFA MVP Sebastian Krzysztofek, scored from 8 yards out in the second quarter. Wrocław quickly came back to take the lead on Schulters’s first touchdown, a 4-yarder.
Schulters’s longest touchdown, a 43-yarder, came just before halftime, giving the Devils a 14-6 lead at the break. The MVP candidate scored twice more in the third quarter, extending the advantage to 28-6. Krzysztofek cut the gap to 28-12 with a short touchdown run in the fourth quarter, after which the Seahawks tried an unsuccessful onside kick. Working with a short field, Schulters scored one last time, and Dawid Pańczyszyn kicked his fifth consecutive PAT for the game’s final point.
The Giants, who played in the Czech league of American football during 2012, are technically making their PLFA debut this season. However, many of the players were members of the Wrocław Crew team that won the Polish national title in 2007 and again in 2011. The Giants will play the Warsaw Eagles, themselves two-time champions, at the National Stadium in Warsaw on July 14 in the Topliga season’s ultimate contest.
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Seahawks: Season complete
Giants: Sunday, July 14, 5:00 PM: vs. Warsaw Eagles (SuperFinal VIII, National Stadium)