The 8-2 Swarco Raiders, Europe #4, will play host to the 6-4 Danube Dragons in the Austrian Football League semifinals at Innsbruck’s Tivoli Stadium July 7.
Playing in front of their home crowd at Tivoli Stadium in Innsbruck, the Raiders look to advance to the Austrian finals for the ninth straight time in
Danube arrived in the semifinals after beating the Modling Rangers in the Wild Card playoffs 21-18.
This will be the third meeting between these two teams this year. Swarco defeated the Dragons 47-21 in the next to last game of the year and then lost in the final regular season game 21-16 when resting some starters. Last week, the Raiders dominated Denmark’s Copenhagen Towers in the European Superfinal, beating them 45-20 Swarco Swarco had advanced to that final with a Central European Football League championship final win, beating Turkey’s Koc Rams in Innsbruck inCEFL Bowl XIII, 49-20.
The Raiders enter the game with the top offense in Austria averaging 47.5 points a game. Meanwhile, the defense is the stingiest allowing 20.9 points a game. Danube’s offense is not nearly as potent scoring at a rate of 29.1 points a game. The defense finished fourth in Austria giving up 28.
Raiders quarterback Sean Shelton wound up as the third overall passer after sitting out the final regular season loss. He ended the year with 2,594 yards and a league best 34 TD passes. Interestingly, Chad Jeffries of the Dragons finished ahead of Shelton with 2,679 yards and 10 TDs.
However, while Raiders running back Sandro Platzgummer rushed for 588 yards and Tobias Bonatti ran for 440 yards, Danube’s top rusher was Jeffries, who has rushed for 395 yards, good for 12th.
Shelton has excellent receivers including Patrick Donahue (512 yards, 6 TDs) and Daniel Saurer (366 yards, 4 TDs). Danube’s Philipp Haun was the fifth leading receiver in Austria with 811 yards while teammate Felix Reisacher finished with 592 yards.
The Dragons will have to find a way to neutralize Shelton and Donahue while keeping Sandro Platzgummer in check. Platzgummer has been a man on a mission in recent games and in the NEFL final against Turkey’s Koc Rams he scored four touchdowns, three in the second half.