Quotables is a (hopefully) weekly feature aggregating all the quotes from post game press conferences in a PLL weekend. The goal is to have this available as soon as possible, and as soon as transcription is available in the event games aren't covered in person.
ARCHERS
Coach Bates on the win…
Just a hell of a lacrosse game. A good win for us. For us to show a little resolve and come back in that fashion hopefully speaks to the trajectory for us. It’s good to get in those tight games, we’ve had a few of them. Jared’s shot obviously was huge, I thought we settled down defensively in the second half. Siss battled, gave us some big ones, and then on the offense end, Tom is Tom. At the end of the day, you’re witnessing someone that can put a team on his back, and that’s what he did. He willed some of those plays. It’s a pleasure to coach him and have him on our side. He was a difference today for us.
Bates on Conners’ two pointer…
First goal of his professional life. His PLL life. Happy for him. He shoots a lot of balls and we give him a lot of grief, because it’s usually not our first option. For him, he had room, he canned it at a big moment, placed it where he needed to, and gave us life and momentum. You could feel us coming out of that shot, like ok this is now not insurmountable. It’s a one point game. I thought that really buoyed us to help finish strong.
On clinching a playoff spot and preparing going forward…
We just feel like we’re a work in progress, genuinely. I don’t think we played our best game today. We looked at each other and we felt like defensively we gave them more opportunities than we needed to. For us, systematically, we still have some guys we want to try to get on track. We’re not resting, our mission is to improve week in week out. Today we get a win, but it’s far from our best game, so we’re just going to keep chipping away at it.
Bates on Lattrell Harris…
I talked about short sticks last week. And when you don’t notice them on that end, it’s a good thing. He just locks you down. He did his job, A+ on that end I think. But then he’s so athletic and he runs the field and with his indoor background, we’ve encouraged him to stay a little bit. He just creates. It’s a scout report thing. If he knows he’s got an O guy on him, he’s got carte blanche to stay, he can pick, flash, create space. I don’t know what the stats were but I know he had at least one assist and a hockey assist as well. He’s so fun to coach, so it’s nice ot see his success and his leadership grow. Today was a good day for him for sure.
Bates on playing at Homewood…
When we came out the second half I walked out with Matt Moore and he just looked at me and said wow this is cool. It’s a great environment. Fans are on top of you. It’s a knowledgeable fan base so they know what’s going on. The energy is awesome. It’s a fun place to play and we look forward to coming here. And we respect the history of the game. Homewood is Homewood, there is something to it. I think our guys appreciate it. The environment was awesome.
On the game winner being drawn up or just a “give it to Tom” moment…
I’m a smart guy right? (chuckling). We had something drawn up. At the end of the day you look at Tom you know he’s going to make a play. We had the extra man look, and I looked at Liam who was taking pictures, and I said “Ryan’s going to win it right here”. We felt like they knew it was going to come, Tom slipped it to Ryan, and Ryan had the shot, but as we got into our half field set, Tom just wills it. I can’t take credit for that. We draw up what we draw up and we create space and let him do his thing, which is smart for all of us.
Bates on Mike Sisselberger and faceoff value…
There’s no doubt. I’ve said it week in and week out, we value him to the nth degree. He gives the ball, he gives us fight regardless. Today lived up to the billings. I don’t know the stats I’d be curious if anybody has them, but it doesn’t matter. He fought. This was a heavyweight battle. We tried to almost diminish the importance a little bit in his mind, because he’s such a competitor and he knew there were a lot of eyes on it today. Siss just fights. Even when he doesn’t win it, he gives us energy with how much he’ll scrap. Big ones in big moments, and that’s a testament to him. He could lose a couple in a row but he’s not going anywhere, and we feed of that. I’m bullish on the faceoff value right now because it’s as simple as can be. It’s the old Chip Kelly thing. If we have the ball you have to at least stop us once. If it’s 18-24 seconds, I’d rather be going and playing offense than having to play defense.
(Coach is told Siss went 48%, 13/27)
We’ll take it. No doubt.
On taking on Chrome next week..
We talked about it last night. Our next three games are against teams that are fighting for playoff life. You know as well as I do, anybody can beat anybody on any day. We know we’re being hunted. I mentioned it last night, and the pregame talk today was, how do we react to that. We’re going to go hunt. You’re out in the wild, you’re not being reactive to the situation. This team has been receptive to that. I think they want to be great. They realize there is a lot of improvement. We’ll take this one, it’s certainly nice to win, but I don’t think anyone takes the foot off the gas pedal. We want to keep getting better.
Bates on Ament in the midfield and his attack group..
We like what we’ve got. I think we’re figuring ourselves out with the flow. As the offensive coach and the substitution guy I just want to get these guys comfortable. My job, I’ve got a lot of mouths to feed. We have a lot of mouths to feed offensively. But I give our guys a lot of credit. At the end of the day, we win. The ability for us to share the ball and distribute the ball, Fieldsy was hot early and we kind of fed him. Then he had a quiet second half, but Tom steps up and another guy steps up. It’s new for Grant, I give him credit. He’s been a great teammate and been positive. I think his best days coming out of the box are still ahead of him, he’s still getting comfortable there. We’re excited about that.
Bates on the play of Brett Dobson in the transition game…
As a coach, he’s aggressive with his ball distribution, we’ll say that. Sometimes I wish we were slower, but we trust Brett. He makes good decisions really. And as much as we say we’re a half field team, you have to mention Connor Maher. Short stick, didn’t notice him defensively so he did his job there, then he puts two balls in the back of the net. Jared has a big goal. But Dobber is a settling influence down there. He makes it, he scans the field, and if we can get up and out and get it to our offensive guys, we’re going to have more time to play half field offense. Our guys are grasping that and getting up and out. He can throw those times, and there’s value to it for us for sure.
Connor Fields on the win…
That’s a really good team we played against. There’s things both teams can work on, but at the end of the day, it’s a hard fought win for us. We feel like those are the games we need to win to be a championship team. We’re happy with the win but there’s still room for improvement for sure.
Tom Schreiber on the win…
[Fields] nailed it. It was a tough win. I think you need to put those ones together. Any time you win a game it’s a good thing, but this one, you get a little bit out of it than just the win. I think we learned some stuff as a team, we fought some adversity, and that will matter down the stretch and come playoff time. We’re obviously thrilled with the result.
Schreiber on the game winner…
If you watch the replay it’s all [Fields] and Mac. Connor and Mac are both battling in the corner in teh corner against two of their tough guys, two of their poles, they’re fighting and grinding it out. I think Mac ends up with the hit knocking them out of bounds. You just love to see that out of your attack. That play, we pick up the ball quick, they were a little unsettled, we run a simple pick and we’re able to shoot the ball from 10-11 yards. It all starts with that play. It starts even before that with Mike Sisselberger. A rookie playing against the top guy in Trevor. Battles him all day, then we get an overtime faceoff and we win. I don’t know the exact stats, someone said he won Siss won three of the last four. That says a lot about his mental toughness, who he is as a player, and who he is becoming as a player. We’re really happy for him and thankful these guys battled it out, and then I get the glory at the end of the day (laughs).
Fields on playing with Schreiber…
Simply put, Tom is that guy. It gives you a little boost of confidence, you play a little looser, you play more free when you have like that who you know, game in game out, plays unbelievable every game. If we win and he has 20 points or we win and he doesn’t have a point, he’s still a big reason we win. He’s a guy I think everyone loves to play with, I know I love playing with him. He’s a selfless guy, and he was joking there, but he really doesn’t care who scores at the end of the day. He always makes big plays.
Fields and Schreiber on being hunted…
Tom - I’d just say, our team is made up of guys who get it. That’s been coach’s message and he has the command of our locker room where he said it once, and we adopt it. As individuals, we all understand that nobody things this going to be easy. Nobody thinks we’ll just show up and play. We have a really dedicated group who prepare individually kind of in the shadows, and then we work well together on film, at practice, just hanging around the hotel, it really is as good a good group. Forget on the field, off the field. We understand the mission and that’s been the theme and will continue to be. At the end of the day, that’s how we’ll approach it really. We’re just made up of the right guys and I’m really proud to be a part of this group.
Fields - When you’re on top everyone is swinging. Everyone is coming out to give you their best game. But we want to play our best lacrosse too. We aren’t going to sit there and take the punches, we are going to go out there and start swinging. It’s great that we clinched the playoffs, but we can’t be satisfied. We made the playoffs the past couple years and we weren’t satisfied with those past couple years. We didn’t get the result we wanted. These next couple games for us are huge not just for playoff rankings but for momentum and to get in full swing of playing our best lacrosse when we need to be.
Fields on getting to the net early…
I think it’s a credit to the other guys I’m out there playing with.
(Schreiber looks at Fields with a puzzled look on his face).
Tom: His goals were all me.
(laughter)
He’s right! It’s a credit to the spacing and watching the film. I went out there to try and set the tone, but also try to do what I could and try and read the defense. Those first couple I was just trying to play with what they gave me. But you get guys like [Schreiber] running around people too so it was a lot of fun.
Schreiber on the momentum after Jared Conners two pointer…
Definitely. Going back to the question earlier, I think we are a resilient group. There’s going to be times when we’re down a little bit and we have to be stoic about that and chip away. But we don’t win that game without that play. So definitely, we started feeling it, we started building a little bit. I fell asleep for a second at the midfield line and gave up the ball, we get another stop, we got another chance at it. But that definitely helped swing it. That was an awesome play, and if you look at that entire play, I don’t know if we got a turnover or a save but we ran the field, hit an attackman, Matt Moore and I think skipped it through to Jared and Jared canned it. Which is huge. Any time you get that sort of full team play, especially when it’s worth two goals and you need them, it’s definitely a big momentum shift for sure.
ATLAS
Chris Gay on the outcome…
A tough loss. I thought we played really hard, fought really hard, and I thought we got better as a team. Unfortunately we didn’t just make one more play down the stretch and they did. So unfortunately we come out with a loss, so it’s just learning from it, moving on, and staying together.
Gray on finding space against Archers defense…
I thought we had a great game plan coming in. We executed, we were getting great ball movement, great open shots, finding those gaps in the zone they were going to on the invert. So it really comes down to staying on top of it during the week, repping it in practice then executing. I thought we did a great job doing that.
Gray on what sparked their early five goal run…
I thought defense locked in. We were getting a lot of juice from the defense. They were making big stops, and we were capitalizing on those plays. Then like I said, execution on the offensive end. When you have Trevor and Jack doing their thing on special teams, our defense was really holding it together, and that allowed us to score some goals on that run.
Gray on the Waterdogs up next…
Just treating it like another game. That’s the beauty of the game, there’s another one next week and we don’t have to wait. Like I said earlier, we are regrouping, staying together, and learning from it. You can be pissed and let it sting, but at the end of the day it’s over and we have to move on and get ready for a great Waterdogs team. It’s hard to get wins in this league, so we really have to make sure we’re on top of things during the week and coming out an executing next week.
Coach Pressler on the outcome…
What a battle. It was a great lacrosse game. We go down early from a couple self-inflicted wounds. Battle all the way back to take the lead. Chris Gray hits that two, they come back. It was great to see two faceoff guys going at it. I haven’t seen that, two great ones, in a while. That was worth the price of admission right there. And then we get a call in overtime on the faceoff against us, and their best player beats us in overtime. We were hesitant against Schreiber. We were indecisive in switching the pick or not, we haven’t been indecisive all game. So our indecisiveness at the end of the game against their best player gave them that opportunity to make that last play. For us, we’re getting better. We’re getting better at the 32. Jack Concannon was again outstanding in the goal. Koby Smith going down really hurt us, it looks like a shoulder injury of some kind. We were actually two poling the first midfield in the first half, and that was very effective for us. Once Koby went down, we could no longer two pole, because we only had the four long poles left, not enough guys. So that injury certainly set us back. We’ve been pretty good all year, knock on wood, with the injury game. But I was proud of our effort. Our compete level was outstanding. We didn’t get out fought today, they just made one more play at the end than we did.
Coach Pressler on the faceoff battle and the value of the position…
It’s not my place as a rookie coach in the league to comment on anything other than what I’ve seen after seven games. But we just haven’t had [that faceoff battle] for a lot of reasons. Now here we go, Trevor is the wily old veteran and Sisselberger is the great rookie. We knew they were going to play straight up, we were going to play straight up, very conventional, and not worry about scheming it up on the 32 like we have in the past. That was kind of refreshing from that point of view. Sisselberger did well, Trevor did well, it was a great battle in there. Great lacrosse at the faceoff X. I told the team during the week, this is going to be a one goal game, either way, decided in the last two or three minutes, maybe overtime. I just felt that going into this one. But for us, upset with the outcome, pleased with the effort.
Coach Pressler on defending the final play…
We were kind of switching all game. Fatigue, overtime fatigue, we’re down a pole, and Danny Logan and Brett Makar got caught in shoulda coulda woulda. Brett thought he was going to switch, Danny thought he had him, they hesitate, and the best midfielder on the planet gets his hands free, game is over. A learning thing, you take away the known there. We had to get the ball out of his stick, switch it, and we didn’t do that. Their best player on offense made the game winning play. He made it, and we certainly helped him to.
Thoughts on Homewood as a home venue…
I’ve coached here a bunch of times back in my college coaching career. It’s an awesome venue. The Cordish Center here to house all the teams, right here on campus, you know you’re playing in Baltimore so fans that really know the game and love the game and are fans of the sport. So it was a great venue. As hot as it was, no complaints here.
Pressler on the defense and positive takeaways…
What we haven’t been doing prior to the last two weeks…lacrosse is a sport where the offense has to compliment the D, the D has to complement the O. It can’t be two different entities. And what was hurting us prior was our middies running off the field in transition, our o-middies. We did that, we gave them the first two goals of the game on our self inflicted wounds by running off the field. And I was certainly livid about that. Make them beat us, let’s not beat ourselves. We corralled that and certainly got better. Trevor dominated the faceoff, Jack Concannon better in the goal, we’re better all the way around on defense, we’re valuing the ball better on the O, we’re doing better in the 32 and trying to scheme that up a bit better. At the end of the day, we’re making progress
Pressler on Concannon over the last two games…
He’s been with the Atlas for five years, so he’s a seasoned old veteran here at the pro level. He tried out for Team USA. His name is synonymous with some of the best at this position. Like any goalie, they go through some lows. He was going through some lows. And we weren’t helping him. It was him, it was us, and all that. A couple games ago we made a change, he took that tremendously. He worked his tail off on Long Island, came back, won the job back, and won the job back again here. So the credit goes to Jack here. He figured it out. He’s a grown man, he doesn’t need his coach helping him. He figured it out. We’re no secret with Trevor, the best in the league, but we’re catching up there in save percentage, getting closer to 50% moving forward.
Pressler on playing the Waterdogs again…
First thing you address now, the traditional faceoff is over again. So we’re going back to two poles, short Eric Law, and stand up and concede the faceoff. We have some schemes that we’ve been working on, some new ones too we haven’t showed, we didn’t need them this week. We knew that with Sisselberger. We’re going to need those for the next two games. We have the Waterdogs next and the Cannons after that. So for the next two weeks it’s going to be figuring out the 32 after the concession of the faceoff win for us. That’s number one on the list. And just continue to get back in the hole and defend when we turn it over. A couple poor shot selections, a catch save going over the top and then we’re running off the field. You just can’t do that. Even though you only have five midfielders on offense, those guys, they have to defend. I’m big on self inflicted wounds. We were better today with those, but still too many for my liking.
WHIPSNAKES
Mike Chanenchuk on the outcome…
Felt like we play a pretty complete game. Defensively we played great the whole game. Offensively we definitely found our stride at times, little lull there in the second quarter. But definitely starting to feel like Whips lacrosse again.
Chanenchuk on LaSalla being perfect on the day…
I think we had a really good gameplan with Petey and our rope unit and some of the middies trying to be as efficient as possible getting on the field and trying to play offense pretty fast. Those guys did a great job executing a game plan. I didn’t know Petey went perfect but that’s pretty impressive.
Chanenchuk on Ehrhardt returning to the lineup and making an LSM of the year run…
He’s the best pole in the league. Him missing a few games I don’t think should hurt him. Getting him back, Matt Dunn, Brad Smith, and bringing along the young guys, I think we’re starting to hit our stride a little bit.
Chanenchuk on the Chaos matchup…
For us, don’t know the standings, but we’ve been at the bottom the first half of the season. Coach Stags has said these are playoff games for us. This league gets really tight and there’s a couple tiebreakers and that type of stuff. So for us, it’s one game at a time, trying to crawl our way out of the bottom and trying to build from game to game.
Chanenchuk on the defense holding Chrome scoreless most of the second half..
Those guys played phenomenal the whole game. Coach Stags and Coach PT have challenged those defensemen and that unit altogether. Brendan Krebs played great in the cage and had some huge saves. It’s good to see those guys playing together, playing fast, making stops like we’ve known they can do for a long time
Brendan Krebs on the win…
Really happy to get two in a row here. Feels good especially for my first two games with the guys. Last week there were a little bit of jitters up and down but glad to play my part in the game and do my best to help the team grind out a win.
Krebs on having Bernlohr and Phipps on the sideline…
It’s absolutely unreal having those two guys behind you. They’re super supportive. Last night at practice, talking shop, talking about the Chrome offense and where those guys like to shoot. What Kyle would be doing, what Brian would be doing, and trying to stay calm and take one at a time. They definitely help during timeouts just talking with me and making sure we get one stop at a time and doing what I can. Two role models, two guys I watched growing up, so it’s definitely a surreal experience.
Krebs on playing a one goal game vs a game where Whips were able to get control..
With that lead it helps me get into a little bit more of a flow. I’m not really worrying about keeping us in the game, but still just save one at a time. Stay calm, cool, collected is the number one thing. But it definitely helps when guys are burying the ball as much as they were today.
Coach Stagnitta on the game…
I think it’s the best four quarters we’ve put together. Three quarters of offense, we struggled a little bit in the 2nd quarter, a great four quarters of defense. And look, defense has been our identity for years. It’s what I committed to when we had some difficult decisions to make four or five years ago in our lineup during expansion. This is what we’re capable of doing. We just needed to get back to keeping it simple, communicating, and this is going to sound crazy at this level but we just got back to fundamentals. Even in our practices, in our video meetings, we just talked about the fundamentals and doing the little things right, supporting each other, communicating, and not being reactive. When you're reactive, you’re late. We wanted to be proactive, we wanted to be disruptive, and I thought we did a pretty good job of it today.
Stagnitta of LaSalla being perfect from the faceoff spot…
He’s getting better. We threw the kid out there a week after he played in the final four. It’s a different game, obviously we have different rules now, and he’s continued to improve. Sometimes, and I’m the biggest culprit of this, you forget that it’s impossible for me to think during a game that oh my god, these guys are rookies, it’s ok. It’s just not the way I think. I’m going to give Brian Phipps a lot of credit. He’s a great resource for me. We spend a lot of time during the week about how to play the faceoff. How to create some offense in the 32 second clock, how to get the ball out of Petey’s stick, and Peter did a great job of executing that today. Phipper came up with some great schemes for us off that, I think we got a couple goals off it. So a lot of credit to them, and Peter had to go out there and execute it. And it’s not easy. Getting beaten on like that by a pole when that’s going to be their approach. It’s a long day for him, and he did a great job.
Stagnitta on the performance of Krebs…
I’ll say this, and I’ve said it before, he’s been on our roster. I protected a third goalie because I believe that he could be the future of our team. Phipper is at the end of his career, and I felt like if anything happened to Kyle, he could be the guy that could step up and win us games. He’s tall, he’s athletic, he’s very subdued for the most part. Part of it is probably because he doesn’t even know any better. But we saw him before. He was at camp last year, we saw him at Champs Series, he came back to our camp this year, so am I surprised? Not surprised, but I’m pleased at how quickly he’s made this adjustment. Because this is tough, and he played really well today.
Stagnitta on a sense of relief for having the lineup together…
It’s a good question, but I never allowed them to do that. We lost two games when we were missing significant numbers, and we were up two goals with seven minutes left in both those games. That’s more what we talked about. You can only control what you can control. I don’t care who is out on the field, we’re good enough to win games. Because we were winning games. But we made mistakes. When these come back is there a sigh of relief, a little more comfort, yeah. Brad looked today like he did some good things, but he hasn’t been out there very much. Having Dunn back was huge on the bottom end of our defense. We’re going to get better every week, because we still aren’t back completely. Ty Warner had his best game of the year tonight. We’ve been there, I think we believed that we could do it, certainly there was frustration, but our locker room is great. No one said wait til we get Mike back, or wait til Matt Rambo is healthy, or wait til Brad Smith is back. They took responsibility for our losses. And again, we talked about we have to get better. Not necessarily healthy, but we have to get better.
Stagnitta on playing the Chaos next…
We just played them. A ton of respect for those guys, I love Andy. It’s always a battle. We know what they’re gonna do. They know what we’re gonna do. At the end of the day, it really is going to come down to, I think last time around faceoffs are fairly balanced, whenever you play against Blaze he can be the X factor. But can we defend what they do, and what they do is a little bit unique and a little bit different, and can they defend what we do. It’ll probably come down to the end again.
CHROME
Coach Soudan on the outcome…
Felt like we were in a good spot at half time. Second half got away from us. Too many mistakes offensively. You’re not going to win in this league scoring five goals. We’re going to continue to figure it out at this point. But way too many early offensive mistakes from us. Overall I thought we played pretty darn good defense at stretches of the game, so that was good. I think our gameplan at the faceoff X was executed and we had long clocks. It’s frustrating part of the game to be 1-6 and know we’re better.
Justin Anderson on the outcome…
What it comes down to is we are continuing to make the same mistakes that we made before. We have to be better at that. We’re professional athletes. Not everything is going to go our way, but it’s all about how you bounce back from that and at times during the game I thought we did a good job bouncing back when we were faced with adversity. But overall, I think we didn’t rise to the occasion at the times when we needed to and that’s something we need to be better about.
Coach Soudan on going back to Farrell…
No comment at this point.
Anderson on the message at halftime and trying to spark offense…
At halftime, as an offense, we felt pretty good. We were able to get back into it with the 2nd quarter. We watched some clips that we thought we could do a better job with. But the 2nd half was little mistakes that led to bigger mistakes and it’s hard to continue to make those little mistakes in big games and beat great teams. We faced a great Whipsnakes team and we have to be better on the offensive side of the ball, and all across the field we have to better.
On playing the number one Archers next…
Soudan - We are playing for our lives right now. It’s playoff lacrosse for us. We’re going to prepare for them and hopefully make a lot less mistakes. I think any given week any team can win in this league and we just need to put it together.
Anderson - The truth of the matter is that our backs are against the wall. The only way out is to fight our way through it. We’re going against a really great team, but we have to do the absolute best job we can to get back in this. You’re never out of it until the end of the season, so we hope to fight and make that playoff push.
REDWOODS
Coach Nat St Laurent on the outcome…
I thought we played well. We had some moments where we let up just enough. When you are playing a game like this in this league, the two point shot is a game changer. We had opportunities. Proud of the mindset and the effort these guys played especially at the midfield. The pressure has been on them, they did a great job stepping up today. Proud of these guys, they came out great, we just had a couple moments where we let down and in this league when that happens, they’re going to score goals. We had some opportunities late we have to take care of. But now we have to regroup and get ready to play out in Denver.
Jules Heningburg on the outcome…
Like coach said, at the end of the day in this league it’s a game of inches. I thought we took a step in the right direction across the board, especially offensively in the midfield. I don’t think we’ve been doing our job to the best of our abilities. I think we took a step in that today. But at the end of the day we had chances, we have to can them. It’s the only way you’re going to win in this league against a tough matchup.
Coach St Laurent on the Redwoods on not having a two and needing to get them…
Well if we score on our other single chances, we win the game. I don’t think we’re going to get too concerned that we don’t have any two pointers at this point. We’re more focused on taking care of the goals and scoring opportunities that we have throughout the game that we have to put in the net. Blaze is the best in the world, and he showed that going down the stretch, that was kind of a difference maker. But again, we hit two or three of those, the one Kirst took hit him in his shins, another was a great save, if we hit those we probably aren’t talking about the two pointer.
Coach St Laurent on the first quarter success and what changed…
I think we came out and our minds were right, we were dialed in and ready to play. We came out with an edge about us. We had some plays where the ball went into the back of the net and gave us some early confidence. From there it built up. As the game went on, both teams got tired and we got away from that a little bit. We have to work on that sustainability and take care of the chances. Early on, we made them uncomfortable with our ride, we got a few ride backs and made them go back to back and have to play defense after a failed clear. In the 4th quarter they had one of those opportunities and our defense dug in and did great, but they ended up capitalizing and that was a bit of a difference.
Heningburg on the midfield play…
It’s a long season and we’ve been building to try and get better every week. We have some new guys in the lineup, and it takes some time to mesh too. We’re not with each other all the time, the opportunities we have together are really meaningful. I think today you saw a product of us being together more and more of the season going on. We took a step in the right direction, but again we have to get better and get on the other side and winning. We can take that today, go home, get back to work, and try to bring that our next week.
Coach St Laurent on the defensive effort…
We played great. We responded. Last game was not our best game defensively, they knew that, they understood it, and they were great today I thought.
Coach St Laurent on the lineup and placing Myles on reserve while adding Rogers and Kirst…
At the end of the day, as coaches in this league making the lineup is extremely difficult, as you can imagine with the talent in the league. But we’re trying to find the right chemistry the right group. Myles is handling it great. Obviously he wants to be here, so does Sergio. The guys we’re putting out there are bringing us great energy and I am pretty confident it’s the right move so far.
Coach St Laurent on Cole Kirst being successful quickly..
It’s two things. One, it’s the way the locker room greets him. These guys are excited to play with him. They encourage him, they want him to be him and do his thing. The other thing is if you have five seconds to talk to the young man, you’re going to find out right away why he’s able to step into a lineup and assert himself. He brings this energy that is incredibly positive, the passion, and it’s pure. Everything about him is genuine, and if you spend some time with that young man you’re going to find out why he’s able to do what he does.
Coach St Laurent on playing in the 32…
We’re all trying to get better. Last week we were playing against a team where I think we won 29 faceoffs. We’re putting our guys out there, we made a big deal of it, we didn’t make it such a big deal this week. Because of that had some scoring opportunities. We put some things in that we really didn’t get a chance to run today that we know we can ahead and do. I feel like we’re in a much better place. But the thing that I walk away with here is that we lost, we can’t forget that. We lost. We can say what we want, but at the end of the day we lost the damn game. That being said, we improved in a lot of areas, and we continue to build this thing up, but it’s a tough loss.
Heningburg on getting to know Cole Kirst and helping him transition to the pro game…
I’ve known Cole and the Kirsts for a long time, they’re Jersey guys. I tried to rekindle our relationship this year when he got drafted and came into the lineup. We spent a ton of time together this week. One of the things is, both back and forth, he gives me confidence, I give him confidence. He’s a guy, if you’re around him, he’s going to be encouraging you and wants the best out of you. For me, being the oldest guy in the midfield group now, that’s what I want out of him to. I want him to be a dog out there and know that he can beat his matchup one on one and go to the goal, and that’s what we need out of him. And we need that out of myself too. It’s been a good give and take, but he’s a mature kid at the end of the day. Like coach said, he stepped into the locker room and the lineup, and he’s giving us all he’s got right now. It’s helping us a ton, and we’re going to need that the rest of the season for us to win.
Heningburg on motivating the team after a tough loss…
To be honest, I don’t think we need motivation right now. That’s a tough loss, but the reality is every game is hard in this league. Our backs, they’re not against the wall, but pressure starts to build as the season goes on and wins get harder and harder. All we’re trying to do right now is just get better every week towards the playoffs. But the reality is that we just have to win, and we’re professionals. We have to look each other in the face and say we have to do a little more and be on the other side of that. Especially offensively. We have to put the ball in the back of the net. We had our chances, regardless of twos. Personally I had a chance at the end to bury it, I know other guys did too, we’re going to get back to work this week and make sure we do next week.
Coach St Laurent on the remaining schedule…
Every game is a new opportunity to get better. We can’t think about the last game. [Cannons] will be a different team when we play them again, and we’ll be different team. I think you saw it today. Once this team starts getting confidence they’re getting, and we have, and the ball starts burying a bit, I think good things are going to come. I love this group, we’re not going to change too much. We’ve got a lot of confidence in the guys we saw today, and we don’t have to tell them too many times they have to bury the shots. You heard what Jules said, they have to go to work and make sure this doesn’t keep happening.
CHAOS
Ian Mackay on the game…
Obviously we didn’t start out very well. But no one panicked. Obviously lacrosse, as everyone says, is a game of runs. We just kind of stuck to the process, trusted in one another, stuck to our gameplan. We didn’t really stray from it when things weren’t going out way. A couple two pointers in the 4th quarter for myself and CJ maybe sparked it a bit and we were able to hold on to the end. I’m proud of our guys.
Coach Andy Towers on the game…
Listen, it seems like a typical Redwoods/Chaos game in a typical two game series over the course of every season. We find a way to split the opportunities. When we played them out in Minnesota they took it to us. Today, I felt confident, certainly very confident going into the game. We wanted to get out a fast start, we didn’t get out to a fast start so credit them, but I thought defensively we played really well in the first three or four possessions. We had some turnovers hunting transition, and those were good looks. It wasn’t like they were bad decisions. But it seemed like they were able to get the ball back and stick a couple of really good shots on us. Down five zip, then come back and play a really tough three quarters. Ultimately, what Mickey said is that the two pointers seemed to be certainly a big momentum changer with Mickey’s, and then with CJ’s to go up by a goal, they played an incredible part in the outcome of all these games. Last week we played in the Star and it’s a great game back and forth, we end up losing by a goal, and they had two two-pointers. We ended up talking about it in the hallway. If you play games in this league and you give up one or two two-pointers or you’re at the slower end of hitting two pointers, it seems like it’s a tough game to win if you’re on the wrong side of that aspect of the game. So, our swiss army machete got the momentum for us, and CJ C ended up hitting the huge one, and we were able to finish the game with Blaze doing what Blaze does. That’s protect one goal leads, two goals leads, he was unbelievable, particularly down the stretch. He proved why I think he’s the best player in the world, our whole locker room thinks that. It’s a great W against a great team.
Towers on Mackay showing off two point range and if there are upgrades coming to the “swiss army machete”...
(chuckling) yeah we’re just trying not to fuck it up. All he does is exceed expectations the board from the way that he plays. From his skillset to his IQ, phenomenal. But the best thing about Ian Mackay are his intangibles. He’s hung up on one stat, that’s winning. What documents that is his willingness to do whatever it takes based on what the situation is. And we couldn’t be more elated that he’s in the red and black.
Towers on Cloutier’s play, and Byrne’s status in the lineup…
So happy for Clootch. To be able to get an opportunity and step up and really answer the bell on the offensive end, all of his success doesn’t really surprise any of us. We’ve kind of had a great problem this season in that we’ve got a great group of 19. But we also have six guys that can step in and bring a different set of strengths to our 19 man lineup. Certainly Clootch is one of those guys. He’s started every single game for us over the course of the last two and a half years, and he’s been a healthy scratch for us the last couple games. And he’s handled it like the first class winner and great teammate that he is. A lot of guys taken out of the lineup have trouble handling it in a first class way. His response was I’ll do whatever it takes, I respect the decision, I’m going to work hard and do everything that I can do, and when I get my next opportunity I’m going to make it hard for you to take me out of the lineup. And he got an opportunity due to Josh’s injury. The fact that Clootch hasn’t been in the lineup has not been reflective of him not playing well, it’s been reflective of other guys playing really well. There’s a major difference there. And Clootch didn’t get wrapped up in not being in the 19 man gameday lineup, instead he got focused on staying in shape, staying sharp, and certainly reaped the rewards of his team first approach to being out of the lineup. Beyond that, as it relates to Josh Byrne, Josh is, I think, the best left handed attackman on the planet. And he’s an incredible teammate and incredibly skilled. It’s a really hard decision for a guy who’s that great a player to help make a decision that’s in the best interest of our team long term. The challenge is, and I always draw this comparison because I’m on twitter and I see interviews of guys in other sports, and every time I listen to Kobe Bryant’s twitter stuff, I go to Josh Byrne. It just seems like they have the same sort of approach to competing and approach to hunting perfection. That’s Bynrey in a nutshell, those things. Sometimes when guys are like that, you gotta work together to protect them from themselves and do what we think is going help us long term in terms of trying to win the PLL Championship at the expense of what we want to do short term which is win the next game. So it was a cumulative effort and Josh had a role, a big role, in accepting the fact that what’s best for our team long term is to get our players healthy. I know if we had the championship today, he would have been in the lineup. But the reality is, it wasn’t. It was a very very important game, but we felt the best decision for our locker room goal which is to win the PLL Championship was to help protect Josh from himself and knowing that we were going to be able to put someone in like Clootch made that decision really easy. But the decision was based on doing what was best for our team with a broader lens.
Mackay: Nobody tell Josh coach just compared him to Kobe (laughing)
Mackay on the defense holding the Redwoods scoreless in the 4th…
We made a couple minor changes, nothing crazy at all. Early in the game, we had the short stick going down to Wes Berg. He’s a super talented attackman, especially off ball, so you have to be locked in on him. I think that almost a crutch early on was trying to stay too tight to him and not switch on picks or whatever it may be. So we made the commitment to switch on picks and talk through everything, trust that process, and obviously it worked out for us in the end. I keep saying trust but really that’s what our defense is. Trusting our one on one matchups, trusting the team defense, and it paid off at the end
Towers: I would expand on that and say certainly the competitive spirit of Nick Rowlett was phenomenal at the X. He battles every single rep out there. Whether he’s controlling it outright, whether he’s competing for the ground ball, whether he’s taking a slash and allowing us to get a man up opportunity at the end of the half, he was phenomenal. Blaze Riorden, I said it earlier I can’t say it enough, he’s the best player in the world. There’s no question about it. He was unbelievable down the stretch of that game. Credit to Coach Hanford for communicating with the players on an individual basis and as a group, and those guys coming together through dialogue to get what’s right rather than who’s right, and a willingness to change our schemes and switch our picks rather than keep our matchups, and step out on the perimeter. And then the last part is, have to credit the individual players in winning their matchups down the stretch. What an unbelievable job Jarrod Neumann did on Garnsey, what a great job Jack did on Rob Pannell, and everybody seemingly stepped up down the stretch. Through the last three quarters, I would say that defensively we won our matchups and then the play of Nick at the X and Blaze in the goal made a big difference.
Towers on the play of Dhane Smith and his connection with Chris Cloutier…
I think when the game is played at the highest level it’s a ball movement game. What makes all these guys dangerous is that they understand that, they’re committed to that, and they all play the same game. You look at our style of play, from sort of Championship season, from last year through this year, we are at our best when the ball is moving quickly. We make a hard move, move it forward, and keep the ball moving. We’ve got, what I think, as a group of offensive players, are the best playmakers in the world. Certainly Dhane I don’t think gets enough credit and isn’t in the conversation enough as the best midfielder in the world. Nobody seems to set up his teammates better than him, and make them better, than what he does, and he’s a threat to score goals if you don’t slide to him. And Cloutier, again, he’s an unbelievable goal scorer but he’s an unselfish player, he’s committed to moving the ball quickly, and I’m sure they have some chemistry from the indoor game. But ultimately what you’re looking at are guys that understand the game and how it’s played when it’s played the best at the highest level and they do taht on a consistent basis. And that’s what we’ve tried to do with our offense. Build the offense around guys that prioritize the success of the team and the success of their teammates ahead of themselves. When we’re doing it well, we’re a tough team to beat.
Towers on the play of CJ Costabile…
CJ is ageless. We’ve said it forever. He just seemingly steps up and makes plays all over the field. He’s got such a high standard for himself and the way that he should play. The reality is, he’s as dangerous as anybody in the league in transition. Not only can he hit two point shots, but he’s also a threat to wind up and hitch and go past people on the perimeter and score. He’s a great passer, he’s phenomenal off the ground. I don’t think he gets enough credit, to be honest with you I don’t think he or Troy get enough credit. As dangerous as CJ is offensively I feel like Troy is just as dangerous on the defensive end. I wouldn’t trade those two guys for any two pole combination in this league. We feel really happy they’re both playing at an elite level. But we still have work to do.
Ian Mackay on what his favorite thing to do is in a lacrosse game…
I just like to play lacrosse. Honestly, I just love playing. I don’t care what position it is. I go back to the first conversation I had with coach when I got traded which was what do you think about picking up a pole. I said sure, I just want to play. This year, my role has changed a little bit being more of a two way kind of guy. I keep harping on it, but the trust. They trust me on offense to be able to dodge guys. Usually I get a short stick so trying to beat my matchup and play smart Chaos lacrosse, move the ball. The one from behind was kind of late in the shot clock, and there was no slide, so I kind of prayed on that one but thank god it went in. Then I have to credit CJ on the two point one. It was a faceoff, CJ talked right when we went out to the faceoff. He said whoever is coming out of the box, be ready, I’m just going to turn and come. Like coach said, Nick battled hard, got the faceoff win, CJ made the move to the bench right away. I just pulled up, didn’t really think twice about it, I saw time and room in front of me and I let it go and thankfully it went in. Anything to help our team win. I don’t care if I’m offense, defense, pole, taking faceoffs, whatever it is, I don’t care. I just want to play and hang out with my buddies on the weekends and have fun with these guys.
Mackay on preparing for a game without Josh Byrne…
Honestly nothing really changes. OBviously Josh is arguably the best lefty attackman in the world like coach was saying. He’s so athletic, so dynamic, he can make anything happen. But Chris brings his own bag of tricks that is just as hard to cover and obviously a different look. So nothing really changes, it was just kind of the basic talks of whether I’m setting a pick for him, whatever. It’s just open dialogue. When we come off the field it’s talking about what we saw, what might work, and coach lets us have that freedom a little bit to go out and play and trust each other. With Josh being out, Clootch obviously stepped up and has been working his ass off the last three weeks not being in the lineup. I’m happy for him. He just put his head down and like coach said, guys can react one of two ways, and he reacted the best way to not being in the lineup the last couple games. When he got the call this week, being with him in Buffalo, he was fired up and excited to get back here with the guys. He was playing free, having fun, and I couldn’t be happier for him.
WATERDOGS
Coach Copelan on the game…
Tough one. Credit to the Cannons, they’re a good team, we knew that coming in. A lot of talk around the faceoff strategy, it kind of played out how I thought. Proud of Zach for embracing that challenge. Wish we would have gotten more offensive output certainly as a byproduct of that. I don’t know what was going on in the firs half at least offensively, that was tough. I haven’t seen us play that poorly at that end of the field in quite some time. We had to work through that, sort of reset ourselves at half time. Then it was the perfect storm in the second half. Once we got the lead and got some momentum going then we went down a couple middies between T-Mac and Carraway. With the short bench, they kind of got us in transition as a byproduct of that. Again, those guys did a good job, and we don’t make excuses around here. Just kind of the perfect storm. I’ll applaud both goalies. Our guy DeLuca was awesome, their guy Kirst, I think 16 saves was his final number and you could certainly feel his presence out there. Two good teams, I’m convinced it’s two playoff teams that still have a chance at this thing. But we have to play better than we did for sure.
Matt Deluca on the game…
I think overall it was a fun game to be a part of. No one wants to lose that game, especially me. Any opportunity I get on the field I want to deliver and win, and we were unable to do that today, so that’s unacceptable in our standards on our team. Kirst played well, and I thought we weathered the storm well on defense. Last week, giving up 19, and this week really giving our offense a chance. We talked about it at halftime, we just really want to get them the ball. We trust everyone out there on the field, we have some incredible goal scorers. Our job on defense is to get stops and to let them score the goals. I think today wasn’t our day, like we said Kirst played well, but that’s a playoff team, I believe we’re a playoff team. We might see them down the road again, and I expect another intense game like that.
Coach Copelan on navigating the low scoring 1st half…
They did a good job of kind of extending out on our attack. Frankly, challenging simple perimeter exchanges, and I think that resulted in us doing the iso ball thing a little bit. I feel liek there was a while where it was just dodge and shoot, dodge and shoot, dodge and shoot. Sometimes that’s ok, but I don’t think we were generating great shots. I felt like we were pretty predictable. And sometimes you go down that rabbit hole and it’s like ugh, you’re in quicksand, you can’t get out of it. We tried to stay positive, I think we handled half time right, we’ve got great leadership in our locker room and we trusted those guys to hit the reset button. Even though I think they scored the first couple of the second half, I think we had the lead at the end of the third quarter. So there was some good some bad and a little bit of an ugly game from our perspective. And then in that 4th quarter, with the short bench, it just kind of got away from us.
Coach Copelan on McConvey…
It seems like two hamstrings. There was a while where we thought it was pretty bad. I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as the original prognosis. I just talked to him walking off the field and he said he already feels exponentially better so I don’t think this is season ending by any stretch. But in terms of how many weeks we may hold him out, that I don’t know yet.
Deluca on the mindset coming off a loss heading to Denver…
It’s a mentality thing, it’s a hunger thing. Coach said at the end of the game, we need to get our swagger back. We know we’re a really good team and we can perform at the highest level and be one of the best teams in this league. It’s going to come from our leadership, I guarantee it. We have some unbelievable leaders who are going to set the tone. I thought even from last week to this week our practice was different. It was just intense. Obviously we dropped one here, but I don’t expect anything different, our veteran leaders set the tone every practice and they make it easy for us to follow along. They do a great job leading us. I have full confidence in them and full confidence in this team to answer the bell and put on a great performance.
Coach Copelan on Currier’s usage as a faceoff specialist…
That was the rationale for dressing six O-middies this week. We knew Zach was going to be spending a lot of his minutes at the faceoff X, we knew it was going to be a hot day down here in Baltimore, so we tried to plan accordingly by roster construction. But then two guys go down with injuries and the whole thing kind of blows up in your face. Zach is the best. He can play o-middie, he can play d-middie, can face off, in my opinion he’s the best ground ball player in the world. I thought he handled that situation really well. I’m proud of him. For this new faceoff rule, he’s kind of the unicorn. We have the optionality there between Eli and Zach and probably a couple others to take some meaningful draws for us.
Coach Copelan on the junior Waterdogs championship sweep…
It was all coaching I heard. I heard Coach Scarpello outcoached Coach Tierney there, a little payback for worlds where Scarps was on Team England. And same thing, that was you (looking at Deluca) that took the chip home early onthis morning. We wish we would have done the clean sweep but fell short. Again, I’m not trying to minimize these week to weeks but we’re 4-3, it’s week seven, we have to get healthy, we have to improve, we have to address a couple areas where we didn’t perform the way we need to and we need to turn the page and keep moving forward. Hopefully get some mojo going in the postseason.
Coach Copelan on the playing in the 32…
Faceoff stuff played out how we anticipated it. Wish we would have converted at a higher rate. Good job at the faceoff X, bad job offensively.
Deluca on how getting so many good looks in the 4th…
They did a good job spacing well. They kept us extended and were able to find some space. Thinking of the man up one specifically, they were able to skip that through and hit Kavanagh on the far side. Credit to them, they played good offense. But at the same time, we need to be better at communication. There are certain situations I can think of now where we just need to communicate better from the bottom to the top, and that starts with me. I see the whole field from the net, and I have to do a better job putting guys in the right spots and making sure we can cover up those skips lanes, get to gloves, and make them take contested shots. In the 4th quarter they got their hands free a little bit, they may have gotten a bit closer to the net. We have to do a better job getting physical, and that starts with me, I have to tell these to get on hands, where to be, and where to be in skip lanes. I didn’t do that, and we paid the price, so I’ll take that one.
CANNONS
Coach Holman on the game…
What are you gonna say? Gutsy, proud, determined. Hats off to the Waterdogs they are really, really good. They have some big time playmakers all over the field. Their goalie played really well today. That was a dogfight there, going to five or six minutes left in the fourth quarter. From our perspective, proud of our guys and grateful for their effort and their attention to wanting to continue to get better. That’s a thing we used from the first day of training camp until now. I thought today, was one of those games where it really paid dividends. Keep grinding, it was hot out there, against a really good opponent, so really good game all around.
Ryan Drenner on the game…
Coach Holman said it really well right there, not much else to add. The Waterdogs are definitely a really good team, that was a really good test for us. Something we are really focused on is being better every single time we get together, and the Waterdogs tested us today. I don’t remember exactly, but I don’t know how many games we’ve been down going into the 4th quarter. So for us to pull together and stay unbreakable, that’s a term we like to use to represent our team. Being down going into the 4th quarter, that was an unbreakable moment for us to be able to stay resilient and get back on top. Huge two ball by Cade, that really swung the momentum back in our favor. That was another opportunity for us to get better and take the next step.
Coach Holman learning the Cannons clinched a playoff spot today…
No shit? (laughter). You just got my thoughts, no shit! I really didn’t even know that obviously. It’s awesome. Another step in the journey of this organization and another step for guys like Ryan that played on this team last year, that have been part of this organization for a couple years, that haven’t had a lot of success. This league is tough. To not compete at the level these guys really want to compete at is tough. I give the group that we brought back from the old cannons a ton of credit because they wanted to dig in their heels and really make this organization a successful one. I’m really proud of them. Obviously really proud of all the new guys we brought in because they helped really pushed that charge. Awesome. Grateful and very proud. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to get ready to go play the Redwoods next saturday night in Denver. That’s going to be our total focus, what’s next. We’re not losing sight of that right now.
Holman on the performance of Colin Kirst…
Like I told you last week, he’s a baller man. Just what I’ve seen out of Kirsty is steady progression. He wants to be good. I don’t want that to get lost on everybody. It’s one thing to say you want to be good and put forward the effort that you want to be good. I talked about this with Asher early in the year. You want to be great? You have to do all the stuff from now until Saturday when game time comes to be great. Colin does that. He’s out there getting shots every day. He’s watching an enormous amount of film. He’s texting Mikey Thompson and I on defensive formations and giving thoughts. He’s involved. He’s getting everything that he deserves because in this life you earn what you get. I’m proud of him, and I think his biggest evolution is leadership capability and I go back to Adam for that. You ask Colin how much Adam has helped him, the first thing he’d say is Adam has really helped him push that to another level. You listen to film, all our calls are spot on. He’s identifying stuff that we identify on film and he’s calling it out to our D, and therefore our defense has played better. The last thing I’ll say, in this league you need a goalie to step up and make saves. You’re not going to win games with just 10, 11, 12 saves in this league, so that’s what we’re asking out of him.
Drenner on his connection with Towson…
It’s a strong program, and Coach Nadelen does a great job of developing us not only as lacrosse players but young men. Zach (Goodrich) is a phenomenal athlete, it’s really nice to have him on our side. I go at him at practice every week and I’m reminded each time how lucky I am to have him on my team on game day.
Drenner on playing at Homewood…
It’s great. My first time playing here was in high school, we played a game each season on Homewood. IT’s such a historic venue. Coach talked about it this weekend and how many great players have stepped on that field. That’s something I try to bring with me every time I step out here, not just homewood but every field, but especially on Homewood. As your stepping out your thinking about all the legends that have played on this field and you just want to play your best to honor your spot in the sport.
Drenner on the Cannons players being from the area…
I think it’s kind of like home field advantage. Slept in our own beds Friday night, drove here to the hotel and had a good a practice on Saturday. We were ready to go. We didn’t have to go through the whole airport situation, go right from the airport to the hotel, and right from the hotel to the practice fiel, we were just kind of in our comfort zone. It’s nice to have guys that are local. It’s great to be able to drive here on the weekend have Beckham with me and drive home with him tonight.
Drenner on getting to play in front of his son…
It’s awesome. Coach uses the word grateful all the time, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity. I try to spend as much time as possible with Beckham. I coached his lacrosse team so it’s cool to have him out watching me instead of the other way around. Let’s ask him, what did you think of the game?
Beckham: Really intense.
Holman on having a pro game at Homewood and it being a site in the future…
I was so honored to go this place. I never should have been here, I was the luckiest guy in the world. I had crap grades, I got lucky Coach Cic took a chance on me and it really changed my life. One of the mentors and heroes of my life Fred Smith was a coach here for 40 something years. He’s one of the reasons I coach, that’s the impact he had on me. That’s what Hopkins means to me, I was blessed to play in four national championships and all that good stuff. At the end of the day, it’s about the relationships. I joked around with these guys before we broke the huddle, that was 40 years ago, none of these cats were even born. They dont even want to watch film of the way we played back then. But just grateful. Something that touched me that we shared with the guys, when I walked into the gym last night. There’s two names up there, Matt O’Mahony and Glenn Wall. Neither one of those guys were very good lacrosse players. They were both basketball players that actually made our team at Hopkins. They became very dear friends of me, just really cool guys. I spent more time in the gym than I probably should have. But I got to be friends with two cool guys like that from Long Island. They were both killed in 9/11. I don’t think about them every day, but walking in there, that just flashed back. I had a big smile on my face because they were two of the most fun loving, greatest teammates that you would ever want to be around. So, that brought back a lot of happiness to me in that moment. I shared that with the guys. That’s what the sport is all about. It’s about relationships, not about championships or games or wins, it’s about learning lessons. Continuing to dig and push forward with your life and you learn that on a lacrosse field and making relationships that last forever. So very grateful and honored to be back here.
Holman on how the Cannons celebrating effort plays as a team…
We do, but I’m not going to tell you about what it is (laughing). This guy here, how many balls has he soaked up. But we do. Those are glorious plays. We talk about Marcus, Ethan, Ryan playing defense. We asked those guys this week, we’re going to get stuck on D with our O-middies, they do a great job in transition. That’s one of their strengths. It’s hot out there, he steps up, takes three d shifts, maybe four. We’ll track, I don’t think they scored when he was on the field, so he’s +4. He might switch to D-middie next week (laughs). We do celebrate that. It’s our number one thing in film on monday are those plays.
On getting ready for the Redwoods next week…
Holman: I’ll tell you right now, we’re not changing a thing. That’s the beauty of operating this way. We don’t know what the record is, it’s our next opponent. And it’s not talk, it’s a way of life. It’s a belief, it’s something you want to honor. These guys want to play that way. It takes a lot of the baggage and it goes away. We just have to go out next week, prepare ourselves this week at the level we told each we were going to do, go out saturday and play the next opponent. It’ll be the redwoods and it’ll be the only thing on our mind when we show up there. Because nothing else matters at this point. I believe that, you can ask them, they believe that. If I step out of the room I bet you they would. Then we’re ok. That’s all that’s going to matter to the bitter end. And when that end comes, that’ll be our last game.
Drenner: I don’t know if you were waiting on an answer from me, Coach Holman said it all (laughing). I don’t have much to add. As soon as we broke the huddle after the game today, we’re going to review the plays and there’s a ton of opportunities for us to get better. Us as players, we’re already focused on making the adjustments and getting better. And regardless of our playoff scenario, we’re going to go and show up against the Redwoods. Again, a really great team, who we’ve already played against. They’re going to know a lot about us, we know a lot about them, and it’s going to be a battle and another opportunity for us to get better.
Coach Holman on the Van Raaphorst two and his play…
It’s funny you say that about Cade. Early on he was a little late on a couple slides today. I kind of went over to Coach Thompson and I won’t say what I said, but it was Cade isn’t playing really fast right now. He had a little talk with him with during one of our timeouts. Then he bombed that two bomb and I thought well, that’s why we got the guy. So it worked. He’s been a great addition. I’d like these guys to speak about that because he’s their teammate. He gives us some flexibility, he’s a left hander down there, obviously great off the ground, Cade’s had a tradition of scoring some two bombs. But moreso than that, he’s brought, I don’t want to say a calming presence, but he’s brought a professional presence. You look at our defense, it’s fairly young. Max Wayne is really a rookie, he didn’t play last year. Jack Kielty is coming off some injuries. He’s brought some veteran presence to calm things down. We have a rookie in the goal. I look at that more than two bombs, it’s the intangibles.
Ethan Rall on playing with Cade…
Echoing all that 100%. But Cade coming in and he wasn’t there all of training camp, when that’s the time we bonding together. He fit right in right away. That calming presence, he’s had a lot of one on one talks with me starting my first week against the Chrome a few weeks ago. He was the other LSM with me. Just learning from him, he has a great pedigree playing at Duke, he’s been in a lot of games, played in a lot of big games, he’s an All Star, so him coming in and making sure the slide are correct. He’s really good on man down, that lefty stick brings a different aspect to us and he knows the plays. He knows it sometimes before it happens. I can echo all the other poles, he fit right into that mix and it’s been awesome. I have to learn how to shoot two’s from him, because I missed mine.
Drenner on being Baltimore Cannons in the future…
We don’t really spend to much time thinking about it to be honest. It’s nice to have Coach Holman and Marcus right around the corner, Zach is a Maryland guy, we have a lot of guys from around here. It’s nice to be able to play here in front of friends and family. A lot of Towson came up and shook my hand, a lot of guys I coached at York and will be coaching at Gerstell, there’s so many connections I have in the area. This area supports lacrosse and a lot of them came out to see the games today. It’s great to be able to play in front of those friends and family. I don’t know how much opportunity there is for the Baltimore Cannons, I feel like we’re destined to go back to Boston, but the Baltimore Cannons has a nice ring to it.
Ethan Rall on his mindset in his rookie season…
I play with a chip on my shoulder, I’m not gonna lie. I was blessed when Coach Holman called me, I was in a Wawa. I didn’t get drafted or anything. I got the opportunity and he said I could compete for a role on this team. That’s what I’ve modeled since day one. The ground balls are an aspect of it, Coach said it when we had a Redwoods scrimmage early, he said go make that money, it’s what you do. So I go out there and have a lot of free range to play my game, play between the lines, it’s what I like to do, get it to the offense, play good defense, all the checks and stuff that I throw. He’ll get on me for some of the things I’ll do, but he really allows me to flourish in this defense. The other guys I’m playing with, they pump me up and pump my tires a lot I’m not gonna lie, and it gets me juiced up. It’s been an awesome experience so far. We’re just going to continue next game mentality next play mentality and looking forward to getting after it.
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