(S8) - Ultimus Week

[HalfEatenOnionBagel]

Playoff Review

NSFC Championship: Wraiths 38 - Hawks 24

An epic comeback by the Wraiths that saw them finally break their playoff curse. Despite being down 21-0 early on, they battled back to punch their ticket to the championship. Robby Rainey was a huge factor in this one with 3 second half touchdowns.

ASFC Championship: Second Line 20 - Otters 17

The youngest franchise in the league took down the former OC dynasty in an epic championship game that came down to a final field goal by Peg Leg to win it. Defense and special teams reigned supreme in this matchup as neither QB had a passer rating over 85 and the rushing total between the two was only about 150 yards.

Ultimus Championship: Wraiths 24 - Second Line 13

Akselsen and Rainey led the way for the Wraiths on offense in this contest as was to be expected, but Kennedy had a fantastic game as well with over 100 yards and a touchdown receiving. Pennington, Hendrix and Lavelle made huge contributions on defense as well as the Wraiths would not be denied their first championship. Akselsen had to be the MVP in this game as he put up over 300 yards. As one of the original members of the Yellowknife Wraiths, he has to be proud of how far this team has come.


Going to Disneyland

Oh yeah you know Mat Akselsen was Ultimus MVP and oh yeah you know he's a big Disney fan. Yeah that's right he listens to Disney music to get hyped for games. And he's got a tattoo of Donald Duck on his butt. Ok I don't know that to actually be true but hey streets are talking. So yeah needless to say he went wild at Disney world. He rode the teacups in circles until he threw up. Then he went to that countries thing and ate and drank until he threw up. Then he met Mickey mouse and yeah he threw up again. That was more the beer than Mickey though. Then he basically hung out all day with the mascots signing autographs for people. Turns out he was a lot more famous than he thought. And he didn't care, he had the whole rest of his trip to eat, drink and be merry. And of course ride all the rides, which is exactly what he did. And guess what I already bought him a ticket to use in a year because the Wraiths are coming right back to win the S9 Ultimus. You can take that to the bank.

New Talent

It's hard to deny that the linebacker wrecking crew made up of Boss Tweed and Micah Hendrix that the Wraiths brought together wasn't a big part of their championship run this season. Both studs at other positions before making the switch to linebacker, Hendrix and Tweed were an absolute nightmare for opponents to deal with. Hendrix in particular had a fantastic game in the Ultimus championship with 6 tackles, 1 sack, a forced fumble and 4 pass deflections, shutting down the second line in both the rushing and passing game. And this was something that Hendrix did all season as well as he had 20 pass deflections on the season, a record for a linebacker. Hendrix was brought in as part of the Philadelphia fire sale that happened midseason. There were a lot of questions about how well he would fit with the team, especially being moved from his role as middle linebacker to the weakside where he had much less experience. There were even questions about how willing he would be to play for Yellowknife after being rivals with them for so long and how unceremoniously he had been shipped off there by a Philadelphia team that seemed to be in a panice. Although he was the Wraiths for part of the year, his impact for them was undeniable, especially in the playoffs.


Playoff Series MVP: Choose an MVP for one of the playoff series and write about why you chose them. Must be completed after the playoff series you write about

I don’t know if you can pick one specific moment in particular from the game, but the Wraiths comeback in the NSFC Championship game has to be one of the biggest conference Championship moments in league history. Down 21-0 early in the game, Yellowknife looked like it would be going home empty handed yet again, but after some massive halftime adjustments this team roared back in the second half on the back of Robby Rainey. He was a beast for this team in the regular season, and although he only managed to get 33 rushing yards in this game, he got the ball in the endzone when it counted, with 3 touchdowns in the second half! It was clear that the first half gameplan for Yellowknife just wasn’t working, so they went back to the classic strategy of, “Give the Ball to Robby”, and it paid off big time. Of course, the eventual Ultimus win is what really matters, but without an epic comeback in this game, the Wraiths don’t even make it that far, and without ol Robby, it just doesn’t even happen. Akselsen had a great game as well for Yellowknife and could have been considered too, but when the chips were down in the redzone, Robby hit the jackpot.