Benitos lose to Wolfpack 79-37

The Santiago Benitos today suffered the worst loss in the history of their team, falling to the Washington Wolfpack 79-37 in the Sweet 16 round of Hazy’s tournament. Only the 11th all-time loss for the Benitos, their previous worst losses were a 28-10 loss to Halifax earlier this season and a 37-46 loss to Dryden last season.

Continue reading for a game breakdown and interviews with the owners!

The Wolfpack put on an offensive showing putting up 262 yards rushing and 556 yards passing, on 48 rushes and 35 for 44 passing. Washington also won the turnover battle as Ben Randall, Santiago’s QB, threw 4 INTs compared to only 1 INT thrown by Washington’s Wolf Wallace.

After the initial kickoff Washington deflected two passes to send Santiago 3 and out, then marched down the field on a 7 play 71 yard drive to score their first TD. Santiago then took 9 plays to go 43.5 yards and settled for a FG. Washington followed up with another long clock eating drive, going 80 yards in 12 plays, eating up 6:05 of the playclock.

Santiago then gets the ball back and promptly throws an INT that is returned by Karl Doenitz to the 2 yd line. Washington HB George Street punched it in on the next play for a quick TD.

Santiago goes back for another 3 and out, followed by a 12 play TD scoring drive that took the clock down to the 9:39 mark in the 2nd quarter, jumping out to a 28-3 lead.

After another Santiago FG, Washington responds with a 73yd HB screen pass to George Street making the score 38-6 at halftime.

In the second half Washington receives the ball and drives down for yet another TD, driving the score up to 45-6. Santiago then tries to make a game of this with an 80yd pass from Ben Randall to Norm DeSpain followed by a Wolf Wallace interception returned 63 yards by Karl Agathon for a TD bringing the score to 45-20.

Santiago then sends the Wolfpack 3 and out on their next drive as they continue to try to mount their comeback, until Ben Randall makes a crucial mistake. On the first play of Santiago’s drive he overthrows his WR straight to Dick O’Kane for his second interception. Washington then drives down the field to score yet another TD.

Santiago kept trying to get back in the game, but Ben Randall’s third interception of the game gave the Wolfpack a short field to score on, and his fourth brought an end to a Santiago drive into Washington’s red zone, both of which Washington converted into more touchdowns.

Comments from the Santiago and Washington coaches after the game.

Painmaker – Owner of the Washington Wolfpack

GLBZ:Congratulations on your big win. Coming into this game did you think the score could possibly end up with that big of a spread?
Painmaker: Thanks! This was obviously more important of a game for us than for the Benitos. They get every team’s best shot, which really makes that amazing win streak all the more impressive.

Any time two good teams face one another for the first time, there’s a chance that the score will be lopsided though. I chalk that up to AI limitations — it would take pretty sophisticated (i.e. expensive) adaptive AI to allow teams to respond to unexpected advantages mid-game. I’m sure if we played again that Santiago would have some adjustments in place to make it a much more competitive game, if not a different result outright. Whatever worked in our gameplan may have identified areas for them to improve, making them that much tougher for everyone else in the future! It works the same way for us when we wind up on the wrong side of the scoreboard (as well as when we win, even sometimes when we big).

GLBZ: Tell us a little about how you gameplanned for Santiago.
Painmaker: Well, we run pretty isolated AI — islander1 takes care of the offense and I do the defense. We each manually scout our opponents to try to predict what we think they’ll do, and make slight adjustments to our core AI accordingly. In Santiago’s case, I saw that they use a bit more passing than our USA Pro brethren so I upped output percentages for pass-stopping schemes compared to our standard numbers. The lack of a game-changing power back allowed more flexibility to challenge the pass. I can’t say what islander1 did for the offense other than just to observe another great game from our O.

GLBZ: What does this win mean to your franchise?
We’re past the point where individual non-playoff games make a substantive difference, but I think the complete body of work that we’re putting together this season validates our long-standing confidence that we can compete with anyone in GLB. Thanks to Landry and thehazyone, there are some credible venues where the best from each region can test one another to see where we all stack up. I like the cash tourney concept especially because there’s a reasonable expectation that teams are trying to win. We were fortunate to gain entry into each of those tourneys, because with their open formats they filled up quickly. The deeper we go, the better our season — although obviously the tourney we most want to win is called “USA Pro.”

GLBZ: Your next opponent in Hazy’s tournament is the Cincinnati Shockers, a fellow USAPL team that was seeded higher then you coming into this tournament, what are your thoughts on them?
They crushed us once before in World Pro League (USA AAA#2) competition, so I know just how tough they can be. They recently showed GLB how to stop a power running game in their OT loss to MEM, and they’ve been incredibly tough in USA Pro for yet another season. I’m excited to be facing them in a game that counts (cash tourney game) because they are clearly a top team and there’s no better way to improve than to learn from playing the very best. Plus joemiken, Mofo, and company are a fun group so you know it’ll add to the league forum fun.

Havoc – Owner of the Santiago Benitos

GLBZ: The result of this game is something that is going to surprise nearly everyone around the GLB world. What happened?
Havoc: Washington is a very good team. My best guess to explain the result is that Santiago got into a low morale death spiral from the broken tackles, turnovers and early scores and never recovered. I wish Washington the best of luck in the rest of the tournament.

GLBZ: Santiago doesn’t lose often, and very rarely is it even by double digits. Talk a little about what something like this means.
Havoc: It doesnt mean much. We’ve lost games before and we’ll lose in the future. We’ve also blown out top teams in the past. I think most people know there isnt that much difference between a lot of the better teams in GLB and anytime you play a statistical simulation game, you’ll sometimes get some extreme results. Washington had better tactics on the night and also got the breaks.

GLBZ: A loss like this has to put a little more fire in your heart to finish out the rest of the season. Can we expect an even stronger Santiago to arise from this?
Havoc: Yeah, anytime we lose or anytime we have a close game I pay extra attention to the pbp, take a lot of notes and make adjustments. Between running into new tactics and exploits from game to game, you also need to stay on top of all of Bort’s changes- those in the change log as well as the mystery nerfs. GLB requires a team to stay flexible and be willing to evolve and adapt over time.

GLBZ: With this loss in Hazy’s tournament now your attention must turn to the other USAPL Washington team, the Bullets, in the Tournament of Champions. What are your thoughts on them?
Havoc: I am just starting to scouting the Washington Bullets, but they look like a very solid team. Hopefully we’ll have a good game. One benefit of the Wolfpack loss is I’ll have more time to devote to the other tournament.

I really think the various tournament organizers need to coordinate things better. I cant speak for anyone else, but I know that trying to play so many competitive games this season has been difficult for me. Scouting and game planning can take a lot of time at this level.

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BIG thanks to Havoc and Painmakers for responding quickly to the interview questions.

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