On May 13, the Sofia Bears played their first official match this season against the Bucharest Predators. In spite of the many negatives that the team had to deal with in the winter – the refusal to be accepted in the Serbian championship, the lack of a sponsor on the training ground, the lack of matches, the loss of 3-4 major players due to injuries and the departure of starting players – all things that would otherwise ruin an average team, but the Bears turned the difficulties into a chance for a new beginning. Thanks to the Academics Baseball Club, the Bears got a training field, the training continued 3 times a week, the National Youth Team for children under 19 years was created for the first time in Bulgaria, most of whom are from the Bears team, the 2nd bear teams take an active part in the organized for the first time this year flag football championship.

All this, and the orderly organization in the team gave results. Only the 16 players who took part in this match faced the 25 players of the Predators. On the sunny Sunday, the Bulgarians sang the anthem loudly and with confidence. After the first whistle on the field, there was only 1 team and that was the Bears. Their game went easily and mostly running with the ball the first touch-down was the work of Running back Plamen Partinov. Throughout the match, the Bears had only 2 missed passes, with the tait-end Alexander Shterionov scoring 4 touch-downs and winning the prize – the best man of the match. Total for the entire game, the Bears scored 10 touch-downs. Quarterback of the Sofia team Christian Chan played strong as always and distinguished himself with great plays with passes and escapes at the last moment, overcoming almost half of the team of Romanians who unsuccessfully tried to bring him down. The hosts from the Predators showed good play only in the second and third quarters and took a few first downs, but never managed to score.

So the Bears' first game of this season ended 72-0. For Predators remains the chance to get it back and show a stronger game on June 3 when they will visit Sofia.

Photo by Alex Chelba