Road to the United Indoor Football League's United Bowl II - UIF

MLN Newswire - Omaha, NE – The United Indoor Football (UIF) Association is proud to announce that the undefeated Sioux Falls Storm (16-0) and the East Division Champions, Lexington Horsemen (14-2), will battle this Saturday, July 29 for the UIF’s championship, United Bowl II.  UBII will take place at 7:05 pm CST at the Sioux Falls Arena, the “Storm Shelter.”
 
The road to United Bowl II was not an easy one for either team.  The first round of play, Lexington and Sioux Falls both had byes, but they had to sit and wait to see who they would play in the Semi-Finals.  First round pitted the #5 Evansville BlueCats up against the #4 Omaha Beef.  The BlueCats returned the favor to Omaha from the last time they were humiliated in the Omaha Civic in Week 3 when the Beef beat them, 75-34.  This time the Cats came out on top, 37-15, holding Omaha to their lowest scoring output all season long.  The other match-up was between the #3 Rock River Raptors and the #6 Sioux City Bandits.  The Bandits gave the Raptors all they could handle and nearly defeated the top seed in the last play of the game but came up just short on the pass.  Rock River walked away with a 37-33 win.
 
The Semi-finals had the Raptors heading to Lexington for the second time this season.  Rock River was up 2-0 in the regular season series and gave the Horsemen their only two losses all season long.  Lexington was not going to have that again as they fended off a tough Raptor offense by defeating them, 47-34.  The other game was between the BlueCats and the Storm.  The BlueCats nearly knocked off the Storm in Week 16 and were looking to give them another battle in the Semi’s.  At what first looked to be a blowout game with the Storm scoring 10 points right away in the first quarter, turned into one of the closest match-ups the Storm had seen all season long.  Sioux Falls came out on top, 32-26.
 
Now the Lexington Horsemen head to Sioux Falls for their first time this season.  All-time the two powerhouses of indoor football are 2-2 with the Horsemen defeating the Storm two years ago for a national championship in Sioux Falls.  Last season the Storm defeated Lexington in Rupp Arena (Lexington, KY) in the Semi-Finals to make it to United Bowl I, where they defeated the Sioux City Bandits for the title.  This is the second time in three seasons that the two teams have squared off for a championship and the third time in a row that the Storm has made it to a title game.