Beach House Real Estate seals the deal

When The Center, historically known as the Anna Maria Island Community Center, started a recreational co-ed adult flag football league six years ago, the field was filled with Island area husbands and wives, friends and family all playing side-by-side on the gridiron for friendly but competitive games each Thursday night. Most teams had at least two female players; some had as many as four. The stands used to be filled for all of the games with spectators and fellow players watching every snap of the ball, with children running around while their parents played and the community watched after the kids.

Over the years, the games have gotten more competitive. The players have gotten younger, and the play has increasingly become faster and more intense. The result is fewer females are playing, the dynamics of the game have changed, and fans in the bleachers are rare. The league gradually transformed and is not quite as family oriented as it once was and as the creators envisioned it.

With the decline in adult flag football participants this season, resulting in the loss of more than half of the teams that typically play in the winter, the remaining players and teams revealed once again the family aspects of the teams and league that made this part of community center sports so special.

The Moss family, the Shaughnessy family, the Sato boys, the Coleman cousins and all of the married and engaged couples that played this season showed the basic foundation of the league remains. In Wednesday night's game, the family theme was prevalent.

In the first semi-final game of the night, regular season top finishers Beach House Real Estate played the season come back team Truly Nolen. At quarterback, Don Purvis took the snaps from his wife Leah for Beach House. Also for Beach House, Jonathan Moss took the field, playing often this season against his cousin Brent, brother Ryan or father Ed.

Truly Nolen had its own family ties with league veterans Nate and Amy Talucci. Nate played Wednesday night against long time friend, former teammate, and "brother from another mother," Jesse Brisson.

With A. Talucci as center, Truly Nolen started on offense. Intense defensive pressure by L. Purvis resulted in a sack and loss of yardage for the quarterback Jon Bell, who finished the game with 200 passing yards, a 67 percent completion rate for the night. Bell's go to players Matt Morgan and Danny Heath combined to get the first down and quick touchdown, putting six points on the scoreboard.

Truly Nolen went on defense with a strong rush on D. Purvis, knocking down his first pass of the game. Moss caught the next pass missing mid-field point by five yards. Sean Kaleta made the first down play allowing Beach House to continue its offensive run down the field. After taking the snap, D. Purvis pitched the ball back behind the line of scrimmage to Moss, who had all the time in the world to find D. Purvis near the end zone. N. Talucci saved the score on the play with the flag pull.

An injury timeout was called for A. Talucci who was unable to return to the game. Playing with only four players on the field for the remainder of the game, Truly Nolen played hard and kept the game in its grasp. With the option to run or pass, Moss headed into the end zone for the extra point.

After two nice receptions by Morgan, the Truly Nolen ball was set close to first down line. N. Talucci was heavily guarded by Brisson causing the incomplete catch. Beach House Real Estate went back on offense, but after three quick downs with flawed execution Team Truly Nolen quickly got the football to start another set of downs at its five-yard line.

On first down, Morgan threw the long ball to Bell into the pass only zone close to mid-field. Bell hit Heath for three passes in a row, including the touchdown catch. The extra point conversion by Morgan pushed the score to 14-7.

Throwing a perfect pass to Mike Gillum with less than two minutes left on the clock, Beach House's D. Purvis added passing yards resulting in a game total 160 yards. On the back of L. Purvis, D. Purvis took the ball back hoping to fool the defense. Gaining four yards, the QB found Kaleta for short first yardage. With the clock ticking down, Beach House needed to find the end zone.

D. Purvis got the football to Moss, who threw to L. Purvis for a long gain. Seven yards from end zone, Kaleta tipped the pass that was directed to L. Purvis in the end zone. Beach House called a timeout stopping the clock with 11 seconds remaining. Recovering from a low snap, D. Purvis tossed a light pass to L. Purvis in the end zone just past her fingertips.

Taking back over on offense, Truly Nolen played smart football with no mistakes. With two good plays and 1.3 seconds on the scoreboard, Brisson placed heavy pressure on the QB. Bell threw the long pass to Mark Boltwood. Moss was able to make the critical defensive play with the flag pull for Beach House before Boltwood could score the TD.

Beach House started the second half of play on offense, facing the quick defensive rush by Boltwood. With the Boltwood sack, D. Purvis was faced with third down. Moss raced to the mid-field line and caught the pass, but had his flag pulled shy of the first down line.

Pumped and ready to take over on offense, Bell threw a bullet to Heath. Heath mad the first down play, fighting for position against Moss. The completed pass to Morgan took Truly Nolen to second down five yards from the goal line. The quick score and point after by Morgan in the corner increased the score to 21-7.

There was a strong extra effort by Gillum, who finished the game with 120 receiving yards, pushed the Beach House team down the field. L. Purvis made the reception and held on to the ball as she hit the field doing a backward summersault. The team attempted a diagonal snap to Moss, but he was not in the right possession and the snapped ball fell to the ground.

Moss redeemed himself with good rushing yardage.

On third and goal, both D. Purvis and Moss lined up behind the center. Moss got the snap and handed it to D. Purvis who ran into the end zone for TD after two missed flag pulls by Boltwood and Heath. Moss brought the game back a seven-point spread with the extra point.

With the score 21-14, Beach House stepped up its defense. Gillum had a critical flag pull on Heath and L. Purvis sacked Bell. On third down, L. Purvis took the QB out of the equation with continued pressure as the snap went directly to Morgan. Unable to find an open man, Truly Nolen gave up the football on downs.

Beach House executed four solid plays with three catches by Gillum and one by L. Purvis, putting the ball on the Truly Nolen five-yard line with less than five minutes left in the game. D. Purvis found Moss all by himself in the end zone as the defenders were drawn off of him by the other Beach House players. The critical extra point pass to tie the ball game was just out of the reach of Kaleta.

Retaining a one-point lead, Truly Nolen took the field ready for smart plays and clock management. N. Talucci ran to catch Bell's bomb. Heavy covered by Brisson and Chris Sullins, N. Talucci could not catch the ball.

With two minutes ticking down, L. Purvis continued to put the pressure on the Truly Nolen quarterback. Morgan caught one of two passes, but the underdog team could not covert on third down.

Beach House Real Estate took over moving the football efficiently down the field with a catch by Gillum and first down run by Purvis. Always cool under pressure, Purvis faked the handoff to Moss and found Gillum deep for TD with 17 seconds left on the clock. Beach House continued to work its magic with Moss running the back of the end zone making the extra point reception, taking over the lead at a critical point in the playoff game.

Truly Nolen planned to make the most of the limited time left in the game. Heath could not handle to pass by Bell with Gillum right on his back. On the second down play, Brisson nearly had an interception. To close out the game with the score at 21-27, Heath was the target for the pass. Once again, Gillum broke up the play to end the game.

Beach to Bay could not get in the end zone in the three plays.

In a rare occurrence, the actual top two finishing teams of the regular season will meet up in the championship game. Number 2 seed Moss Builders clinched the second spot in the final game of the season by defeating Beach to Bay Construction in the second game of the night. The championship game will be played on Wednesday, April 6.

Sun Scoreboard
Wednesday, March 16

Adult league – Playoffs

#3 Beach to Bay Construction 6
#2 Moss Builders 21

#1 Beach House Real Estate 27
#5 Truly Nolen 21