The Express Electronics Eagles were cruising Saturday and closed the regular season on a high note with a one-sided 48-8 victory over the Miller Barbarians at the CPA Airport Field.<\/p>\n
The Eagles had a good start despite being flagged for a delay of game, which meant the team would start from the 12-yard line instead of the 17-yard line.<\/p>\n
No harm was done, though, as the Eagles soared with their running game\u2014which moved the ball 75 yards\u2014and eventually made it to the end zone for the early 6-0 lead when running back Semisi Paongo rushed for a three-yard score. The lead was stretched when Paongo made good on the two-point conversion.<\/p>\n
The Barbarians put up a good start as well, opening with a 38-yard run by quarterback Alvin Atalig, but the team was not able to do damage and the Eagles managed to get the ball back with no harm done.<\/p>\n
Instead of working ahead, though, the Eagles suffered a setback as the Barbarians defense forced running back Stanley Iakopo to run out of bounds in the Eagles\u2019 own end zone for a safety, 2-8.<\/p>\n
The speedy Iakopo, however, would get redemption as he scored on an eight-yard run with 4:49 left in the second quarter, while Paongo followed with the two-point conversion again to pad the Eagles\u2019 lead, 16-2.<\/p>\n
The Eagles then broke the game wide open as they continued to move the ball well into Barbarian territory before quarterback Dane Lizama sneaked into the end zone on a three-yard run for a 22-2 advantage with a little over two minutes later.<\/p>\n
The clock was ticking away, and instead of resting for the second half, the Eagles continued to run on all cylinders and managed to get another TD courtesy of a one-yard run by Russell Saimon to head into the break ahead 28-2.<\/p>\n
While the offense was in the middle of a scoring spree, the defense decided to not only stop the Barbarians, but to also get into the scoring act.<\/p>\n
The Barbarians were finding success running the ball in the start of the second half when Junior Ray intercepted a pass by Atalig, then ran like the wind for a 50-yard touchdown return, giving the Eagles a 36-2 lead.<\/p>\n
Despite playing another bout with a shorthanded crew, the Barbarians played like warriors as they continued to fight and refused to throw in the towel.<\/p>\n
Their never-say-die attitude served them well as they finally hit paydirt three minutes after Ray\u2019s TD. After a losing 13 yards on a run and an incomplete pass, the Barbarianas struck with just one blow as Atalig zipped a pass to B.J. Tagabuel, who hauled the ball in and took off for a 65-yard touchdown, 8-34.<\/p>\n
It was all Eagles from then on as Iakopo rushed for another score and converted for the extra two points, while Soni Pomee was credited with the final TD on a three-yard run.<\/p>\n
CFL playoffs begins this Saturday at 10am at the CPA field, with the Eagles and the Tinian Typhoon battling for the right to face Shell Lightning for the 2005 championship. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A long green line of Express Electronics Eagles shake hands with the shorthanded Miller Barbarians following the Eagles\u2019 48-8 victory in Saturday\u2019s Commonwealth Football League at the CPA Airport Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}