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Let's Go Jets! Harlem's Gang Green in Playoff Battle

By DNAinfo Staff on December 6, 2010 6:19pm  | Updated on December 7, 2010 6:59am

The Harlem Jets' 9-and-under mighy mites, undefeated in their city league division, lost in the first round of a national tournament and now hope for third place.
The Harlem Jets' 9-and-under mighy mites, undefeated in their city league division, lost in the first round of a national tournament and now hope for third place.
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Courtesy of Stefan Romero

By Jon Schuppe

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — The New York Jets' clash with the New England Patriots may have riveted all the football world Monday, but they're not the only Gang Green with postseason glory on the line.

After barely coming up with the money to make it to a national tournament in Florida, two Harlem Jets youth football teams are headed to the second round on Tuesday, with one team gunning for a national championship and the other hoping for third place.

Both teams, part of the Harlem Jets organization, flew to the American Youth Football national championships in Orlando on Friday after scrambling for money to send all their players to the tournament. The Jets covered the $500-a-person bill by holding a last-minute fundraising drive and raiding its operating budget.

The Harlem Jets' mighty mites working out during a national championship week in Orlando, Fla.
The Harlem Jets' mighty mites working out during a national championship week in Orlando, Fla.
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Courtesy of Stefan Romero

On Sunday, the Jets’ 12-and-under junior midgets crushed their first-round opponents, the Mo Kan Panthers of Kansas City, 35-0. They will take on Chicago’s High Ridge Chargers Tuesday night.

"Complete domination," said Stefan Romero, a coach for the Jets’ other tournament team, the 9-and-under mighty-mites, said of the junior midgets' win.

Romero’s squad, which had gone undefeated in their New York City division, lost 14-0 in the first round to Houston’s Garden Villa Giants. They now only have a shot at third place, provided they win the rest of their games. Their first step comes Tuesday morning, when they will play the Emeryville Ravens of Oakland.

Romero said his players battled harder than the first-round score suggested. Their opponents scored on the opening kick-off return and a fourth-quarter 35-yard run, while the mighty mites were stopped on a third-quarter goal-line stand.

"It was a grind-it-out type of football game," Romero said by phone while his team practiced Monday afternoon. "But we didn’t give our all. We’re focused now, we’re having a good practice, and we’re going to win (on Tuesday)."