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2024 Nationals Recap
The St. Louis Australian Football Club have all made it back home and the 2024 season has concluded. While coming home with the Division IV title was the goal, the players can hold their heads up high after the weekend and taking for taking major strides together as a club. St. Louis paired up with the Wisconsin Wombats and Cincinnati Dockers and it made for an exciting weekend! After some tweaking of the pools, St. Louis was slated to play against the Orange County Giants, Denver Bulldog Reserves and the North Texas Devils Reserves.
Saturday morning was an early start for the Blues as they made their way to the field while the sun was still sleeping. A dew-covered oval called for wet socks, heavy boots and a Sherrin that did not want to be marked. Strong work of Wombat players Jonathan Sickerdick in the middle and backed up by Dan Hill & Dakota Latimer kept the Giants in check but still saw a halftime deficit of 6-1. The second half called for grit and determination and the Blues were able to answer the call. While field conditions did not improve, St. Louis was able to sneak in some goals and a handful of behinds to complete the comeback and ended the game with an 18-7 victory.
With a long break between games, the team was able to rest up ahead of their game against the Denver Reserves. The temperature rose to upwards of 95 degrees and the competition heated up as well. With early goals from Josh Kandy and Stephen Zenishek, the Blues were able to take the lead but a season ending injury to Kandy left a gap in the forward attack and a last second goal from Denver saw a halftime score of 14-12. A back and forth second half saw the score begin to climb for both sides. A few kicks on goals for St. Louis just seemed to trickle away from the big sticks and settle for minor scores saw the lead disappear and swing in favor of the doggies. The siren sounded on a 40-29 loss for St. Louis. With a loss to Denver, the likelihood of a Grand Final appearance dropped down to little to no possibility.
Sunday rolled around and an early morning win for Denver against Orange County solidified that there would be no Grand Final appearance for St. Louis, so the game against the North Texas Devils reserves was just for pride. Going home 2-1 is a lot better than going home 1-2 and a drastic improvement on the last Nationals result of 0-3. USAFL Co-founder Paul "Plugger" O'Keeffe has played in every USAFL Nationals since its inception in 1997 and St. Louis had the privilege of having Plugger join the team for the final game of the 2024 season. North Texas had gone 0-2 on Saturday and was not going down without a fight. After quick exits out of the midfield lead by Skipper Alex Tajkowski and Joel Friesen lead to an inside 50 mark that lead to a hand ball to Tyson Adams of the Wombats who banana'd the leather off the Sherrin for a goal. Our most physical game of the weekend saw a halftime lead of 27-1.
We don't know if anyone reads this far in the recap but over the long haul of a weekend and lack of Live. Laugh. L'Spreadsheet, we're not sure who score when but Stephen Zenishek stole a cheeky left foot goal right in front of James Heuston and the goal line and followed it up with a 30 meter goal to seal the 46-15 victory. Zenishek also celebrated 100 USAFL games and metros.
10/24/2024