Welcome to the first article on the new series I’d like to call Norfolk Legends: Seawolves of The Past! I am grateful to be drafted by such a great group of folks and after getting some inspiration I decided to do some digging into the team’s past. With the help of some great people in the Norfolk locker room, I was able put together the seasons of Norfolk’s history. I’m going to focus on the seasons where human players were a part of and highlight some of the stars in each DSFL season where they played. I tried my best with the earlier seasons where bot players were not as easily identified so, I may miss a few folks here and there. With that, I would like to apologize ahead of time if I missed anyone. Without further ado, let’s start with the first season of the DSFL: season 3.
Norfolk was one of the original 6 teams that were a part of the inaugural DSFL season, joining the Chicago Blues and Portland Pythons in the West division at the time. It was created and headed up by @Oles and @Perry87 . Together, they finished the season in 2nd place in the West with a 6-8 record and just narrowly beat out the Portland Pythons to earn their playoff spot. The Seawolves pulled an upset here with a dominating performance over the Blues in a 24-14 victory in the West playoff game. Unfortunately, their luck ran out against the Marshals while on the road where they were handedly beaten 3-19. The Seawolves had an all-around top offense, but lacked the defensive presence to stop the Marshals and their run game. This was a common theme in the regular season that saw them near the bottom of the league’s defensive stats.
Here were the biggest stars from that season’s team:
Christian Adams – QB
The first quarterback to don the blue and grey was Christian Adams, a gunslinger from Ohio State. He threw for second most yards that season with 3,156 and had an impressive 14 touchdowns and the longest throw seen by the DSFL at that time with a 52 yard completion. His best game came in the post season win over the Blues with an impressive 24 completions out of 35 throws, 291 yards, and 2 touchdowns to earn a 112.9 QB rating. He did struggle a bit at times and it showed because he ended the regular season with the second most interceptions. For a first season quarterback, he did a stellar job. He had a good receiving group to throw to and definitely had the right attributes with lots of arm power and proved he could sling it.
Shawn Ariel – RB
This speedback was a pure workhorse for Norfolk and he was the most efficient running back in the season with a league high 35 yard rushing. Ariel was highly efficient with a 4.4 average yard per run and 8 touchdowns to be the second most in the league among running backs. His best performance of the season came in a loss to the Pythons in week 14 where Ariel had 23 carries for 102 yards and 3 touchdowns. Along with Adams, the 2 had a very strong offensive combination for the Seawolves this season.
Hunter Mason & Wes Washington – WR
Mason was a speed receiver who had decent hands along with a good combination of speed and agility to make him a great target for Adams. Mason was the top receiver in the league with 6 touchdowns, 87 receptions and an great 14.6 average yards per reception. Washington was another speed receiver that had tremendous burst off the line and was no slouch himself when it came to catching the ball. Washington was the most efficient receiver over 50 receptions at 15.9 average yards per catch and 2 regular season touchdowns. This was a deadly pairing for Adams to throw to which lead them to the first Ultimini game together.
Matt Smith – FS
The one lone wolf who held down the defense tremendously this season was center fielder, Smith. He was a big surprise on the Seawolves defense, racking up 5 interceptions, 6 pass deflections, and 1 sack in the regular season and was an integral part in many close games for Norfolk. Smith was an absolute ball hawk and one of the brightest stars on the defensive side of the ball.
Jason Jerek – K/P
The kicker from WVU had lots of power invested early on but was a decently accurate kicker as well. He wasn’t bad or good in the regular season and smack dab in the middle of the best kicker’s this season. He had an 87.5% completion rate on extra points and a great 19/21 for field goals. He was pretty solid from about 49 yards or shorter and executed just about as well as you’d like from a kicker this season. With the team’s offense as good as it was, Jerek was always in a decent position to go for the extra point or field goal.
So, there you have it for the first article in this series! I’ll tackle DSFL season 4 next! I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it! We’ll try to dig deeper into next season and see if we can figure out more impactful human players that the team had and how the team did overall.