Quarterfinal Recap

With starting quarterback Levi Naiditch in the army this week, Yerucham Pliner grabbed the reigns of the offense in Derech Etz Chaim's quarterfinal matchup against Orli Print. During DEC's first possession, Pliner followed beautiful blocking down the length of the field for a touchdown. The DEC offense stalled twice more in the red zone and did not find the end zone the rest of the first half. After halftime, a long pass to Kobi Schwartzbaum led to a touchdown reception by Pinchas Scwartzbaum. The following drive was capped by a catch and run by Sam Ash for the touchdown.

With Sam Ash returning to the defense, DEC repeated their shutout performance against Orli Print during the group stage.

The weather was wet and stormy and effected DEC's ability to run up the score on long throws. Instead, they marched up the field five times, scoring on two of those drives. The weather also impeded our film crew from recording footage of this game. We apologize for this; in place of highlights from this week, here is a highlights remix from the game against Orli Print during the group stage...




Next up: Miamo Magic, who defeated AH Schrieber to advance to the semifinals, as you can see from the updated playoff brackets...

Round of 16 Recap

Derech Etz Chaim entered the first round of the playoffs hoping to have their entire team available for the first time since December. Sam Ash, the teams leading defensive lineman, was an idiot and injured himself playing basketball the Friday before the game, hurting the DEC defense and making the game against Karelitz a bit scarier then expected.

Karelitz took advantage of the depleted DEC defense and scored on their first three drives while holding DEC without a score. Karelitz led DEC 19 – 0 with less then 3 minutes in the half. At that point the DEC offense sparked by Yerucham Pliner and Kobi Schwartzbaum started to get on the board and DEC was down 19 – 7 at the half. 

Receiving the ball to begin the second half, DEC put up another touchdown to cut the deficit to 19 -14, but Karelitz came back with another score to lead 25 – 14 with under eight minutes to play. At that point DEC came alive. Levi Naiditch ran the ball and threw two perfect passes as DEC drove downfield to bring the game within reach. The score was 25- 20 with under four minutes remaining. 

The defense held and Karelitz made a tremendous mistake on 4th and 20 attempting a fake punt which failed, giving DEC the ball with great field position and an opportunity to take the lead. DEC scored on an accurate pass from Naiditch and a great catch  to Pinchas Schwartzbaum. The stadium went wild after the successful two-point conversion gave DEC the lead 27-25 for the first time all game with under two minutes to play. 

DEC held on to win with a crazy crowd and a relieved team to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time! Their quarterfinal opponent this motzei shabbos will be Orli Print, a team DEC defeated 33-0 during the group stage last month.

Here are the history making highlights...

...and here are the updated playoff brackets...

Group Stage Recap

After beating the top seed in the group, Neve, in the first game of the group stage, Derech Etz Chaim beat Orli Print in the second game 33-0. Here are the highlights...

DEC entered the third game, against D&B, without its two starting wide receivers and our starting quarterback. Because D&B had defeated Neve the previous week, a loss would keep DEC from winning the group and would make them dependent on other teams to assure them a spot in the Holyland Bowl playoffs. 

Last year's quarterback, Yerucham Pliner, ran the offense with a new playbook that relied more on the ground game and screens. The greatest threat to a DEC victory was the fact that five players were playing both offense and defense requiring them to spend more energy than they were used to. 

The game began with DEC sacking the D&B quarterback for a safety . Unfortunately, Pliner could not get the offense moving and D&B took a 7-2 lead with a touchdown. 

DEC came back on the next series; on first down, Pliner threw a bomb to Sam Ash to take back the lead 9-7. DEC scored again on a couple of good runs and a pass to Pinchas Schwartzbaum to take a 15 – 7 lead.

D&B benefited from our tired defense and missed flags and came back to score and convert a two point conversion to tie the game up 15-15 at the half. 

A tired DEC re-energized and re-focused during halftime, received the kick off and quickly converted to take the lead 22- 15. On the next drive Pliner intercepted a D&B pass and returned it with a great block from Ash for a touchdown. From that point D&B lost their composure and DEC held on . One more touchdown run by Pliner and the score was 35 – 15 .

With the win DEC wins the group with a record of 3-0. This means that DEC will enter the Holyland Bowl playoffs as one of the top eight seeds for the first time. We have three weeks to recover form all the injuries. DEC will learn which group runner-up they will face in the Holyland Bowl round-of-16 when the draw is held Motzei Shabbos February 7; that game will be played on February 14.

Recap - Group Stage Game #1

The calendar has turned to 2009, which means that AFI has moved on to the group stage. Derech Etz Chaim played their final regular season game against Neve Tziyon. A rowdy affair ended in a split of the two games. The split kept DEC out of the top eight teams in the standings meaning that DEC would have to settle with a #2 seed in the group stage. As luck would have it, DEC was paired in the same group as Neve, and scheduled in the first game of the group stage to face their opponent from the previous week.

This time DEC game out prepared and completely shut down the Neve offense while opening up for a crushing 67-12 victory.

The DEC defense, ranked first in the league with the fewest points allowed, shut down Neve so completely that in the first half they gained only negative yardage and did not even complete a pass until late in the second half when the game was basically over. The ferocious front line of Sam Ash, Yaakov "Diesel" Hill and Adam Seibsener got through Neve's offensive line and shut down every play either sacking the quarterback, stopping the run, or pressuring the quarterback into interceptions or bad throws. 

Jeffery Malley returned one interception for a touchdown and great blocking let Yerucham Pliner return a punt for another.

On offense, with #1 receiver Chaim Gross sidelined with an injury, Kobi Schwartzbaum stepped up, catching seven touchdown passes from quarterbacks Levi Naiditch and Yerucham Pliner. 

DEC next faces #3 seed Orli Print to clinch a spot in the Holyland Bowl playoffs. DEC stunned the crowd this past week and if they keep playing like they did in this game, they will have a great shot at going all the way! Remember to save all those nickels, dimes and arugot so you can book a ticket on the group flight to the Holyland Bowl. More details to follow as the playoffs progress, but in the meantime enjoy the highlights below, which is the best quality footage we've seen in a long time. (Tip: if the video stutters, click pause until the video buffers.)

Week 7 Result

Derech Etz Chaim played Lobos, one of the best teams in the league, in Week 7. They showed their potential and issued a warning to the rest of the league that DEC is not a team to underestimate. DEC won the first game 14-6, and even though they lost the second game 13-12 on a controversial call, they came away with a moral victory on the night.

Next, DEC takes on Ohr Dovid in Week 9.

Here are the highlights from Week 7 vs. Lobos...

AFI Weeks 1-6 are in the books

Derech Etz Chaim are keeping pace with the front-runners after 6 weeks of play in the AFI season. They currently sit in tenth place with two games in hand on the leaders. You can now find current standings on the blog.

DEC has posted the following results:

Week 1: DEC 15-7 Dan Cohen/DEC 6-6 Dan Cohen

Week 2: DEC 12-6 Pizzeria Efrat/Pizzeria Efrat 13-7 DEC

Week 4: DEC 15-0 Klein Management/DEC 25-6 Klein Management

Week 6: DEC 33-0 J Caf?/DEC 26-6 J Caf?

This Motzei Shabbos DEC will play against fifth-place Lobos, the highest ranked team that has played only eight games, so the boys will have a great challenge in front of them, but also an opportunity to make a statement of their intentions this season.

Here are some highlights from earlier this season:

DEC Football Renovations

In preparation for the new AFI season we've done some renovations to the DEC Football blog that we think you'll enjoy.

Keeping up to date with the team has never been easier. You can now subscribe to the blog's RSS feed through the widget found near the top-right of the page.

In our links section just below the RSS widget is a new link to a Google Map of Kraft Stadium and the yeshiva. For those who plan on visiting the yeshiva and catching a football game, the Google Map can be used as a tool to get directions to the stadium. Just click on the marker by Kraft Stadium, click "Get directions: To here", and then type in the address you want to start from. Even if you don't plan on visiting any time soon, the map gives you a good visual idea of where the yeshiva and stadium are.

We've also added a widget which makes sharing blog posts and videos with your friends and family easier than ever. Whether your preferred method of online communication is through email, instant message or Facebook, you'll be able to spread word of Derech Etz Chaim triumph across the web in seconds.

There's a fun map we've added as well which shows all the exotic places we're getting hits from. Believe it or not, we're getting hits from places as far away as Tasmania and Singapore.

We're well aware that everyone is waiting for news of the season's first few results, and that will be posted in the coming days. Until then enjoy the new features.