LIVESTREAM Austria: Traun Steelsharks @ Salzburg Ducks, May 29, 14:00 CET (2 pm, 08:00 am ET)

AFI | American Football | 05/29/2022

The Salzburg Ducks (1-5) will be looking for their second straight win in the Austrian Football League, Sunday, May 29 when the play host to the 1-5 Traun Steelsharks.

This will be the first of two meetings between the two teams as they face each other again in the final regular season game of the year.

The Ducks are coming off a decisive 35-20 victory over the Graz Giants last week, their first win of the year. Before that, the Ducks had been beaten by the Danube Dragons 31-21 to open the season and the Prague Black Panthers, 17-7. They then lost a heartbreaker to the Vienna Vikings 14-13 before dropping a 28-26 decision to the Mödling Rangers three weeks ago. Two weeks ago, Salzburg were shut out by the Znojmo Knights 17-0.

The Steelsharks have had an equally tough road losing four of their first five games. They opened with a 16-10 loss to the Danube Dragons and followed that by losing 41-25 to Graz. They finally turned things around with a 28-24 victory over the Swarco Raiders but then fell to the Prague Black Panthers 38-7 and Telfs Patriots 24-14.

Behind center for the Ducks is American quarterback Kris Denton who has thrown for only 936 yards and nine touchdowns in six games after a four passing touchdown performance in the loss to Mödling. His leading receiver, David Kanyinda, has caught 16 passes for 214 yards and a touchdown while second-leading receiver, Maximilian Reuter, has caught 20 passes for 210 yards and three touchdowns. Salzburg is the second leading rushing team in the AFL averaging 162.5 yards a game with Denton being the team’s top rusher with 66 carries for 491 yards, good for third overall in the AFL. They will be facing the league’s third best defense against the run as the Steelsharks give up 92.2 yards a game,

The Ducks have the league’s stingiest defense against the pass giving up 149.3 yards a game.

It looked like the Steelsharks had turned things around with the win over the Raiders but the two subsequent losses indicate otherwise. Their signal caller is veteran John Uribe, a product of Lindenwood University, who is in his fourth season with Traun. He has had an adequate start to the season and has completed 90 of 160 passes for 1,201 yards and 11 touchdowns in the five games. In last week’s win, he stepped it up throwing for 317 yards and four scores. In fact, in his last three games, Uribe has averaged 275 yards passing a game. But with the worst rushing offense in the league, averaging only 48 yards a game, The Steelsharks may be asking too much of their quarterback.

Uribe and the offense will need the defense to step up as well. So far, the Steelsharks have allowed an average of 28.6 points and 369 yards per game.