Two youth football teams from the borderland will compete this Friday for the 2019 AYF Youth National Football Championship in Kissimmee Florida. The two teams representing El Paso are the El Paso Bandits 13u team and the Southeast T-Birds 8u team.
This opportunity to compete in Florida has brought forth many new experiences for players on both teams. Many of the players have never flown on a plane before, or have even seen a beach before. This gives the city of El Paso a chance to showcase the talent that’s in the West Texas region.
The El Paso Bandits 13u will be defending their championship title from the year prior. Gael Ochoa is a returning player from last year’s championship team and is also the brother to Pebbles Hills High School QB Sebastian Ochoa. The Bandits youth organization has players from 9 different El Paso area high school feeder patterns.
The Bandits made easy work of the Kernersville Raiders from North Carolina winning 21-6 in the first round. The second round was against the Worcester Massachusetts Cowboys, although it was a much closer game the Bandits came out victorious by a score of 14 to 0 and advance to the AYF Championship on Friday to defend their title.
The Bandits will play the Glenville Elite from Ohio on Friday at 12:00 p.m. MST for the 13u AYF National Championship.
The Southeast T-Birds will be the first team from the El Paso Area to compete for a championship in the 8u Division. The T-Birds have a long winning tradition in the El Paso region and like the Bandits have players from all over the city.
The T-birds played a close game in the first round but came out with the 14 – 6 win against the West Baltimore Ravens. The second round saw the T-Birds easily take care of business by defeating the Baker County Wildcats from Florida by a score of 41-12.
The T-Birds are set to faceoff against the De Soto Texas Havoc Friday at 8:00 a.m. MST for the 8u AYF National Championship.
Visit The Badlands AYF Facebook page on Friday to see live streams of the championship games.
