Peyton Manning and the Colts may have finally won the Super Bowl. But that doesn’t necessarily mark the end of the football season for local fans.
Coastal Point • FILE PHOTO:
Jonathan Meiklejohn and the Sussex County Warhawks let Garnell Henry Jr. slip away in a 20-6 loss to the Warriors last year. The Warhawks are now the Punishers, in a recognized Diamond Football League.The Sussex County Punishers — formerly known as the Warhawks — of the Diamond Football League will kick off their season Feb. 18 in a new division.
The league reconfigured into three divisions to better accommodate the costs of traveling, according to Punishers assistant coach Butch Yocum.
“A lot of these guys can’t afford to travel long distances,” Yocum said. “And the owners don’t have the money to pay for buses for them either.”
Eight DFL teams — including two-time league champions (2005 and 2006) the Fredrick County Outlaws — recently disbanded because they couldn’t pay their league dues. And now the league is divided into three five-team divisions of north, central and south.
The Punishers will compete against the New Castle County Cobras, Prince George’s County Headhunters, Baltimore County Bulls and the Queen Anne County Thunder in the central division.
The New Castle Saints, Gloucester County Generals, Wilmington Raiders, New Castle Knights and the Salem County Stars now play in the northern division.
And the Wicomico County Stallions, Virginia Pirates, Virginia Beach Rhinos, North Carolina Power and the Talbot County Warriors round out the southern division.
Each team plays every other team in their division twice, both home and away, for an eight-game regular season, leading into the playoffs starting April 28.
The division winners get an automatic bid into an eight-team playoff and will be slotted in the top three according to their records. The remaining five playoff teams will fall anywhere from fourth to eighth based on their regular-season records.
The No. 1 seed would play the eighth seed; the second would play the seventh, and so on and so forth.
The Punishers will open their season on the road against the Headhunters and then have a bye in Week 2 before hosting their first home game against the Bulls in Week 3.
The Punishers hadn’t declared as of Coastal Point press time this week whether they’d play at the Sussex County Boys and Girls Club in Seaford or at Rehoboth Elementary. But, according to team owner Tina Dennis, the Punishers will play at one of the two sites, and they should have a decision will have been made by the end of the week.
Dennis unsuccessfully tried to secure a field with a gate, such as that at Sussex Central Middle School and others in the Woodbridge school district. But, fortunately for the Punishers, they still have the option to play where they always have during the league’s existence over the last eight years.
“We’ve tried Seaford Parks and Recreation, the Woodbridge school district, Sussex Central Middle, and we’re still waiting on Selbyville Middle,” Dennis explained. “So it’s been tough trying to get a field, because they don’t like giving their fields up.”
“We should know whether we’ll play at boys and girls club in Seaford or at Rehoboth by the end of the week,” Dennis said.