“Eskimos Salvage First-half Bloodbath in Season Closing Draw

Anchorage--March 11, 2024

The sun shone bright and spring seemed to have sprung in the most unlikely of places, as birds sang and the piles of white snow shrunk around Anchorage. Unfortunately for the Eskimos, they were scheduled against quite the ferocious group of Necromantic Horror. The band of fleshy beasts going by the nebulous team name crasherc were led by the merciless Swann. Perhaps most threatening of this team was not the powerful werewolves or leper-skin ghouls, but the spectrally horrifying wraith spirits that the skeletal Swann sent onto the field this sunny afternoon.

Indeed, it would be at the scythe-tip of #5 Emiliano Felor that inaugural Eskimo Ulf Hoffman would be unseam'd from nave to chaps, and left by the fat and fed Apothecary to crumple in the purple springtime breeze.

Coach fivehead fought a losing battle in half I, ordering his men toe-to-toe with zombie, golem, and other undead ilk. As crasherc scored their sole touchdown of the afternoon, the Anchorage team fielded a mere five players. As the first half drew to a close, the always-hurting Harper Ink tried a long toss halfling TD, but couldn't send #3 Hopeful Mag Raith far enough into the Horrors' backfield to do so.

Nevertheless, coach fivehead cobbled together a full (albeit bleeding) eleven to take the field in half II. Thrower Brooks Clement admitted in a postgame interview that the men were demoralized after the carnage of the first half, and that it was "horrific" coming face-to-face with a freshly risen Hoffman on the other side of the pitch. Reportedly coach fivehead wasn't of much spiritual uplift in the locker room either. Despite it all, a certain calm swept through the air as the second half kicked off. The sun hid its orange face behind the sea of clouds rolling in, and the spring air cooled to a brisk chill. Brothers Cassidy and Leopold quickly removed Werewolf Eliana Otaiy from the field to start the half, and the Eskimos secured possession.

As the beasts of the opposition clawed in on the somewhat frozen Anchorage drive, Clement all at once snapped free and handed off to Lenard Ainsworth. The Humans wriggled their way into an opposite-field cage and now left crasherc with the necessary catching up to do. With plenty of time still on the clock, the Eskimos handled the possession coolly, as their synergy began to work in full effect. Harper tied up two zombie blockers in the wide zone in perhaps his best teamwork in months. And Ainsworth escaped a stripped ball attempt from Werewolf Samuel Eli to pull just short of the end zone.

The Anchorage Eskimos all seemed of the same opinion that kicking off again would be exceedingly dangerous to preserving a tie, and so they waited until there was all at once too much pressure. The Necromantic beasts tried as they might, but ultimately came up short as the now-awoken Otaiy tried an all-too-risky last second endzone sprint. But the Eskimos weren't quite out of the woods yet. The apothecaries finally got of their asses when Ink quite expectedly went down in the dying moments of the match. This time it was his shoulder, which had dislocated about 5 inches out of its socket.

Ink will return to rehab as the Eskimos close out their season with a draw, finalizing their first-season record at 4/4/7. It's been a journey of color and cataclysm, horror and jubilation. And as the Eskimos leave their home stadium as banged up as ever, they'll look at how to revitalize their roster before they start their next season.”