October 27, 2007
It was a beautiful, sunny fall day in Green Bay as the Saint Paul Pigs made the long trek across Wisconsin to Green Bay for this Midwest Playoff match to take on the Wisconsin RFU Champion Green Bay Celtics.
After the opening kick, the Pigs uncharacteristically got off to a good start and moved the ball deep into Green Bay territory. Despite holding possession for 10 minutes, however, no score would come and after a couple mistakes and some missed tackeles, Green Bay capitalized to score a try on a long run and take a 7-0 lead. The Pigs soon fought back with a Jason Naber penalty, but that was followed by a second Green Bay try and the score stood 14-3. After another Naber kick cut the deficit to 14-6, more mistakes let the Celtics punch in another try and take a 19-6 lead, which they would hold at the half.
The second half looked to be more of the same and didn’t look good, as within the first 5 minutes the Celtics ran in 2 more long breakaway tries thanks to more poor Pigs tackling and took a seemingly commanding 31-6 lead. As they have all season though, the Pigs refused to die and began to fight back. Hard running by the backs started to put the Green Bay defense on its heels, and excellent forward support kept the ball in the Pigs’ possession. 3 Pigs tries from Zeth, Colby and Zac in a 20 minute span later, it was 31-25 and a stunning come from behind victory seemed within reach.
Despite holding possession inside the Green Bay 22 for the last 7 minutes of the game though, some stout tackling kept out the Pigs attack, several times stopping mere inches from the Green Bay try line. With the ball still only 5 meters out from the line, the referree blew his whistle to end the match and with it the Pigs’ playoff hopes for 2007.
After the end of the match, Jeffrey “Kato” Gunness announced his retirement from the Pigs after 13 years, and in a touching cermony buried his boots at midfield.
Line Up:
1. Ben Hanson, 2. Alan Martin, 3. Jeff Gunness (Troy Midboe), 4. Chris Ries (Mark Fredrickson), 5. Jason Naber, 6. Ryan Backman, 7. Josh Van Gelder (captain) (Zac Bauer), 8. Chris Swanson, 9. Jason Rombalski, 10. Scott Colby, 11. Dennis Edwards (Steve King), 12. Seth Spreadbury (Zach Fjelsted), 13. Aaron Hyman, 14. Andy Schwartz, 15. Grant Dietrich
Scoring:
Tries: Colby, Spreadbury, Bauer
Consversions: Naber (2/3)
Penalties: Naber (2/2)