Eagles’ big men get job done

After stumbling in the opening week of the Commonwealth Football League, the Express Electronics Eagles released their fury on the Barbarians on Saturday as they ran wild for a total of 255 yards with eight sets of legs to even their record to 1-1.

The first play from scrimmage set the tone for the afternoon session as Stanley Iakopo rushed for 67 yards down the CPA Airport Field for a touchdown, as the Green Machine consistently won the battles in the trenches.

Charlie Peters, Gus Romolor, Wilmer Sablan, Wesley Foster, and Jeff Norita had front row seats for the running display as the front five provided most of the push and opened the holes from which their backs exploded for large gains.

The massive men also provided quarterback Dane Lizama plenty of time to complete nearly half of his passes for 153 yards to four receivers in the second week of playing together. While Lizama was unable to produce any points and only managed 31 yards in their 16-2 loss to the Shell Lightning, the Eagles place as much of the blame for the poor showing sloppy conditions as the fact that it was their first game playing together as a unit.

They have put the opening day loss behind them, but it was clearly etched in their memories after Charleston Aiken caught Lizama’s pass that out them up 14-0 as defensive lineman Faasefulu Tigilau smiled along the sidelines and said “We want the Lightning.”

Head coach Pete Le’au was pleased with his team’s performance and said that everything fell into place as expected, and that he was able to spread the wealth to all of his players.

“It felt good because we finally got our offense clicking. The receivers, the running backs—everybody got in. The defense was good too, but we wanted to play everybody on the team so we made sure that everybody got into it and played,” he said.

The Eagles “D” got plenty of work against Plasido Tagabuel and the Barbarians as the black and gold poured on 186 yards of offense. Game breaker Syl Teregeyo did just about everything for his team except drive each of them to the game as he ran the ball 16 times for 105 yards and a touchdown, caught a pass for 13 yards, played a solid day in the secondary, stopped Luka Tapua’ialupe on a sure touchdown run with an unassisted open field tackle, and played special teams. The only thing he didn’t do was reline the field during halftime.

Teregeyo was not alone in his iron man efforts as a number of Barbarians were forced to play both sides of the field when only 26 players showed up for the contest. Despite the loss and the lack of a complete team, coach Chon Won realizes that he has plenty to work with and that it’s just a matter of getting the job done.

“We still got a long ways to go. We’re making mistakes but we’ve got to come to practice and keep driving,” he said.

Utility player Asterio Tawanpiy was one of the fireplugs that fueled the Barbarians on offense and defense, and he said that his teammates need to consistently show up for the games on Saturday if they hope to make the playoffs.

“We’re short of guys so we need all of our guys to show up and go in,” he said

That sort of togetherness is something that the Eagles are not lacking, as they took the time to appreciate each other during the post-game huddle as they all exchanged thanks to one another.