Using a strong defensive effort, the Nebraskaflagfootball.com team took the preseason tournament championship and officially kicked off this year’s flag-football season.

The annual tournament began on Thursday with one game for each team, with the final game on Sunday. After playing four games earlier in the day, Nebraskaflagfootball.com used overwhelming defense to take down the Centaurs 20-18 for the title.

Graduate student Matt Domangue played a key part in the champion’s defense by inspiring his team with aggressive secondary play. For Domangue, the tournament was not only fun because of the win, but also because it was a chance to get on the field with his teammates.

“It was a long day, but we played hard in all our games,” Domangue said. “It was a great team effort from all of us and we ended up on top, and we had fun doing it.”

Domangue started the action with an interception on the first series when he stepped in front of a pass from Centaurs quarterback Joe McWilliams. On the very next play, Domangue put his team in the lead when he caught a touchdown pass while falling out of bounds for the game’s first points.

But even then, Domangue was not done.

With his team clinging to a narrow 13-12 lead late in the first half, Domangue intercepted another pass, and this time took it back for a touchdown. The play was called back due to penalties, but the damage had already been done.

By getting his hands on another pass, Domangue helped inspire the defense to make another big play.

After Nebraskaflagfootball.com had extended their lead to 20-12 with a touchdown pass, the Centaurs answered back to pull the game within two. Instead of going for an extra point, the Centaurs went for the two-point conversion to try and tie the game.

Unfortunately for them, Domangue and the rest of the Nebraskaflagfootball.com defense again proved up to the task and stopped the conversion to cement the win.

With the win, the team took an early edge over their rivals, the Centaurs, as the two teams came into the tournament ranked first and second respectively. But that doesn’t appear to have affected the resolve of the Centaur team.

“We played as hard as we could, they just bested us,” said Centaur sophomore Lee Freudenburg. “We’re not worried about the loss, we’ll be back and get them in the regular season.”

Freudenburg had an interception return for a touchdown in the game, and said he is looking forward to the season, rather than just preparing for a tournament.

Even in losing, however, he said the tournament wasn’t a total loss: at least they got to see what they are up against.