The Dubai Stallions enjoyed a second half rally to finish their regular season unbeaten following a 20-20 tie with the Dubai Barracudas.
Despite being 20 points back at half time, the Stallions dug deep to bring the scores level while surviving a nervous dropped catch from the Barracuda’s Daniel Viranyi in the final seconds.
The Stallions will now play the Al Ain Desert Foxes in the Desert Bowl semi-finals while Barracudas will take on Abu Dhabi Wildcats.
Barracudas coach Kyle Jordan bemoaned his side’s inability to close out the game that would have given the team their third straight win ahead of the playoffs.
“We definitely left one out there tonight,” Jordan told Sport360°. “We did some good things but we didn’t make plays consistently.
“Hopefully the team will learn that if you get a 20-point lead then you can’t coast on it. A good team will fight to the end.”
The Barracudas took an early 6-0 lead when Viranyi picked up Askia Horne-Pierre’s fumble for a 68-yard touchdown, with a missed conversion.
Jordan’s men grabbed another stunning touchdown with Michael Anderson catching a 40-yard precision pass from Zavier Cobb, making the PAT for a 13-0 lead.
A two-yard TD from Jacob Dhaher gave the Cudas a 20-0 half time lead. Ali Al Hossana brought back six points for the Stallions before quarterback Andrej Tasic ran in a twoyard touchdown to set up a dramatic finish.
With under a minute left Tasic’s superb 35-yard pass reached Jeff Nicolson setting up a successful two-point conversion from Davion Miller to level the scores.
Meanwhile, the Abu Dhabi Wildcats beat Al Ain Desert Foxes 30-0.
Running back Andrew Williams consistently found holes in the Al Ain defence. The youngster ran in a pair of touchdowns as well as three successful two-point conversion.
Quarterback Cory Piesel ran in a one-yard TD before following it up with a nine-yard score for a 14-0 lead thanks to a two-point conversion.
Before half time, Williams gave the Wildcats a 22-0 lead with an eight-point play. In the second half, Williams found a seam, running 23 yards for his second touchdown before running in the conversion to take the score to 30-0.
