The College of Medicine Shaikhers \u2013 M-1 students Andrew Bonett, Christopher Cooper, Eric Gelman and Mihail Stojanovski, and M-2s Jon Beilan and Rafik Zarifa \u2013 recently won the Comp B 4-on-4 Intramural Flag Football Championship by a score of 14-12. The Shaikhers, named in honor of Dr. Saad Shaikh, associate professor of Ophthalmology, beat a team called HAM, which included members of the Lambda Chi fraternity.<\/p>\n
Defense was the key to the championship victory. With 53 seconds left, HAM threatened to take the lead, needing only a few yards for a touchdown and down by two points.\u00a0 Jon, the Shaikhers\u2019 defensive ace, chased down the opposition\u2019s quarterback, coming up with a much-needed sack.\u00a0 The offense then got a crucial first down to run out the clock and seal the victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The champions were cheered on by College of Medicine fans wearing their medical school t-shirts and carrying signs. Dean Deborah German was also in the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dean was there,\u201d Andrew said. \u201cWe had to win. Losing was not<\/strong> an option.\u201d<\/p>\n Comp B included 64 teams and the championship was a single-elimination tournament. The Shaikhers won their quarter-final game in double overtime and their semi-final game in triple overtime. Team members joked that they were competing against underclassmen \u2013 younger players who weren\u2019t trying to succeed in medical school at the same time they were training for football.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the third game on, we were beginning to feel our age,\u201d joked Eric. \u201cBut we said from the beginning of the season that we played with the heart of 100 lions, one for every student at the UCF College of Medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The College of Medicine Shaikhers \u2013 M-1 students Andrew Bonett, Christopher Cooper, Eric Gelman and Mihail Stojanovski, and M-2s Jon Beilan and Rafik Zarifa \u2013 recently won the Comp B 4-on-4 Intramural Flag Football Championship by a score of 14-12. The Shaikhers, named in honor of Dr. Saad Shaikh, associate professor of Ophthalmology, beat a team called HAM, which included…","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":23459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[14914],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-23458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medicine","tag-medicine"],"yoast_head":"\n