After losing to the Fujitsu Frontiers on a game-ending field goal in the regular season and trailing at the half, the Kajima Deers came back to win the 23rd annual X-Bowl, 21-14. It was another close, hard-fought match-up between two of the top Kanto League perennial powers. The attendance topped 22,000, filling the lower deck and portions of the upper deck as well.
After several drives that stalled in the first half, the Deers came roaring back (can deers roar?), scoring on their first four drives of the second half, capped by a 78 yard touchdown pass from Yuusuke Ozaki to Naoki Maeda. They twice failed on 2-point conversions and sop so only led 18-11 with 4 minutes left, when they added a 22 -yard field goal to make it 21-7, before Fujitsu frantically tried to come back.
The Frontiers scored with 2:25 left on a 6-yard pass from Izuhara to Brad Brennan to make it 21-14. They failed to gain the on-side kick but were able to get the ball back with around 17 seconds left and were able to move the ball to midfield, but ran out of time.
The Frontiers moved well on their opening drive, scoring on a 32 yard run by RB Yuichi Kon, and holding Kajima scoreless in the first half. But mistakes and missed opportunities plagued their efforts. QB Izuhara seemed to lack arm strength on many of the throws that required them, and was intercepted 3 times, and had another easy interception dropped. He was 12/22 and 121 yards passing, and Motoki Yoshida added 19 yards going 2/4.
The Deers threw the ball for 245 yards, with Takuya Yamashiro going 10/13 and Ozaki going 3/5 including that TD pass Maeda, and had one interception. The Deers held the ball for nearly ten minutes longer than the Frontiers, and out-gained them 408-275.
