The flag football craze hit San Diego this weekend and it could be seen everywhere, from the fields at San Diego City College to Bourbon Street, Montage and Top of the Park. From two days of wild games played in blistering heat to the chanting of the Atlanta Thunder football team at Bourbon Street at the Sunday night closing party, organizers of the first annual Surf & Turf Bowl are calling the event a huge success.

“The competition was fierce, and regardless of the heat, each team that came were well organized and had a lot of ambition,” said tournament co-director John Hernandez. “It will only get better, honey!”

Seven teams took part in the tournament, which included the four teams that make up the San Diego American Flag Football League. Traveling to America’s Finest City for the competition were the San Francisco Shockwaves, the Los Angeles Motion and the Atlanta Thunder.

In round-robin play on Saturday, the Los Angeles Motion team came out on top as the number-one seed by defeating the SDHomepix.com Gamecocks and the Dave & Busters Broncos. The Bourbon Street Hurricanes ended up the number-two seed, defeating the Atlanta Thunder and SDHomepix.com in their round-robin games.

On Sunday, Bourbon Street came back for the single elimination tournament, playing the number-seven seeded Gamecocks and defeating them in a 38-30 game. In the semifinals, Bourbon Street once again defeated the Atlanta Thunder. Drawing a first round buy in tournament play on Sunday, the Los Angeles Motion faced the San Francisco Shockwaves in the semifinals, where the Shockwaves upset the Motion to advance to the championship game against the Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes played an outstanding game against the Shockwaves with quarterback Peter Manzoni, who has struggled in league play this season, showing off his skills as a quarterback. Trevor Keucker also stood out with several key runs for the team that contributed to the 52-14 victory over San Francisco. The tournament victory comes after several weeks of the Hurricane’s struggling in regular season play.

“Going into this I did not expect to do so well,” said Ivan Solis, tournament co-director and member of the Hurricane’s football team. “In our last regular season game we did very well against one of the teams there, but this tournament I did not expect to do well. Everybody contributed to this and we played as a team so it was great.”

Feedback on the Surf & Turf tournament has been positive, and Solis added that based on early feedback, teams from all over North America are already expressing interest in participating next year.

“I think it set the bar for other tournaments to come,” he said. “I’ve had people come up to me and say they have never seen anything like this, from the program to the parties. It just ran smoothly; there were no hang ups and we were prepared, and fortunately it all worked out.”

The San Diego Flag Football league will continue with regular season play this Saturday at Linda Vista Rec Center. Game one starts at 11:00 a.m. with the Bourbon Street Hurricanes taking on the Hamburger Mary’s Cowboys. In game two, at 1:00 p.m., the Dave & Busters Broncos will play the SDHomepix.com Gamecocks.