By Noam Gumerman
The Carolina Flyers comfortably took down the San Diego Growlers Friday night in the first round of the UFA Playoffs 25-14. Both teams got off to a bit of a sluggish start, with Carolina jumping out to a 2-0 lead before San Diego quickly tied up the game. Then both teams did the same thing again as the Flyers jumped out to another two-goal lead at 4-2 before the Growlers once again responded and tied the game. Players on both teams looked a little nervous, and took a little bit of time to settle into the wet conditions at WakeMed Soccer Park.
But after Carolina took a 5-4 lead into the second quarter, San Diego never found their way back into the game. It was all Carolina the rest of the way. The Flyers O-line started clicking, and they didn’t even give San Diego a break opportunity across around an hour of real time and about two quarters of game time from the early second quarter through the late third. Their defense meanwhile, began to pile up the blocks and breaks, and even just enough pressure to force San Diego to keep making mistakes. The Growlers dropped two or three scores in the end zone that would’ve kept them hanging around in the game longer that the Flyers ruthlessly punished.
Carolina ended the game with double the blocks that San Diego had (14-7) and just half the total turnovers on top of it (11-22). It was a dominant performance that ended with five straight Flyers goals in the fourth quarter to turn an impressive win into a blowout. It was the perfect game that showed just how far Carolina has come this season. Both teams played around two months ago to kick off the season in a tightly contested battle on the west coast. And here at home the Flyers illustrated that they’ve only gotten better every week since that game, and San Diego clearly hadn’t.
The Flyers offense showed that when they’re all on the same page, they might be the best unit in the league. Tobias Brooks had his best game of the season at the perfect time with 5A/4G/0T and 531 total yards. He was unstoppable all over the field and found a perfect balance of controlled aggression with the disc in his hands. Allan Laviolette turned in a gem of a performance as well with six assists, 500 yards of offense, and just one turnover. And on his birthday, Jacob Fairfax turned in six goals and 363 receiving yards too.
And the Flyers defense showed again that they’re among the deepest in the league with 11 Flyers recording a block over the course of the game with Suraj Madiraju, Owen Stout, and Christian Belus each ending the game with two.
The Flyers advanced to face the South Division top seed Austin Sol in Texas on Friday, August 7th. The winner will advance to Championship Weekend and be crowned South Division Champions. The game is a rematch of the thriller they played a few weeks ago in Durham that ended in a 21-20 Flyers win.
