The Tribune

by RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

Following a grueling regular season, the Commonwealth American Football League heads into its post-season for the final three games of the year.

The double header next weekend will feature the pennant winning undefeated Campbell’s/V-8 Fusion Stingrays against the winless BaOilCo Jets on February 10th, while in the other semifinal matchup, the Orry J Sands Pros will face the newly resurgent Freeport Hurricanes, February 9th.

The CAFL Boil Fish Boil is scheduled for March 3rd.

The Stingrays finished the regular season with a spotless 6-0 record, capped last weekend by a 58-0 blowout win over the Jets.

The Pros at 3-2, scored a 20-18 win on the road over the Hurricanes at Independence Park in Grand Bahama in their only matchup of the season.

The Stingrays defeated the Hurricanes 40-14 in Grand Bahama and 38-14 in the second matchup between the two teams in New Providence.

Against the Pros, the Stingrays took a 28-14 win in the opening game of the season, and escaped with an 18-14 win last month.

In a productive 2012-13 season, the league welcomed the return of the Hurricanes, a representative from Grand Bahama in the CAFL for the first time in years.

It marked the return of inter-island competition with the joining of another nostalgic football team of the 1970s.

The Hurricanes brought the CAFL back to Grand Bahama after six years.

After a dominating CAFL run of seven titles, the Pros hope to return as the league’s top team after being dethroned by the Stingrays last season.

The Stingrays, who were formed in 1970, won the team’s first CAFL title and hope to double in 2012-13.

The Stingrays are led by CAFL’s leading rusher and MVP, Jamal Storr.

In a CAFL preseason press release, Stingrays head coach Lawrence Hepburn says he knows that the Pros have vengeance on their minds and knows that his team has to be better to repeat.

The Pros, on the other hand, hope that returning collegiates will help them to reboot.

In the same press release, Sherwin Johnson, Pros head coach, said that after the loss last year, he is hoping that the franchise would be able to turn things around as the team seems more focused and has been practicing harder than in years past where he believed complacency set in.

After several titles consecutively, Johnson felt that complacency set in and his team suffered in the 2012 Championship against the Stingrays.

The Pros have boosted their running game with the acquisition of former Jets player Jason Davis and will see the return of four-time league MVP Charles Edwards.

As for the oldest football team in the CAFL, the Jets seek to recover from the three straight championship game losses in 2008, 2009, 2010 and as well as their lackluster 2011 year and a winless regular season this year.