Playoffs Get Started: North

The #3 White Plains Wombats are at home to #6 Delaware Black Foxes in one match Saturday, while #4 New York Knights welcome #5 Boston 13s in the other game.

As we now move into single elimination matches, the winners advance to the next round and the losers are done for the season.

White Plains (4-2) are coming off two straight wins, the second being against Delaware (1-5) last weekend, while the Black Foxes haven’t won a game since the opening round of the season when they trounced cellar dwellers Northern Virginia Eagles.

In fact, the Wombats narrowly missed out on finishing in the top two in the standings being edged by the Philadelphia Fight, who had the same record but a better points differential.

According to White Plains’ player/coach CJ Cortalano, their goal all along was to peak at this point of the season.

“We spent the entire season in June preparing for how we were going to play. It took a little while to click, but the last couple of weeks we’ve been on a roll.”

Last year’s grand finalists New York (3-3) have had an up and down season. They have posted back-to-back wins only once all season long but finished the regular season on a winning note by toppling the Fight.

On the flipside, Boston (1-1-4) has had a season they’d probably rather forget, although they now have an opportunity to right the ship when they make the trip south on I-95 with Knights head coach Guillaume Cieutat admitting his team has been in a funk this year that he has been trying to fix.

“I think last year's undefeated season turned out to be quite detrimental, too many bad habits.”

On a positive note, however, he says guys like Josh Rice, Randy Porter and Karim Singleton have been inspirational and have good attitudes that the team is building on.

The Brooklyn Kings and Philadelphia have earned a first round bye. They will host the winners of this weekend’s games next weekend.