Fast Takes with Fast Break: Toronto vs Rochester

Authors: Ittaana Krow & Tyler Beckman, Jack Moseley

PC: Major League Quidditch

The Toronto Raiders look to continue their winning ways as they head down to Rochester to play this Saturday, June 18. This will mark the first ever series between the franchises, with a top spot in Conference B of the North Division on the line. The Raiders showcased an opportunistic defense, fast pace, and depth in their 3-0 series win over the Cleveland Riff, but this Whiteout team will be a more complex puzzle to figure out. 

In their last outing, the Raiders mostly deployed a mark chaser defense and positioned their beaters up at the keeper line with the intent to create pressing opportunities, leading to easy transition goals. This was fairly successful with Bryan Melchior at keeper situating himself to rotate to opposing wing chasers, and routinely coming away with a block or tackle to regain quaffle possession. Over the course of the series however, cracks did begin to show when Cleveland’s John Gaffigan (keeper) was able to get downhill and force Toronto’s keepers into a pick-your-poison situation, having to choose between stepping to the driving threat or recovering to the open wing. Sticking with a singular formation is not likely to be a recipe for success, so we expect to see more creativity on that front from Coach Michael Howard. 

While the Raiders overwhelmed the Riff for most of their series with high mark defense and aggressive beating, Cleveland was able to find success with the offense flowing through a skilled ball handler in John Gaffigan. This go-around, Whiteout will look to recreate some of that success with ball handlers like Basem Ashkar and Cody Keefer. The key for Whiteout this series, especially if the Raiders mix in zone defenses and force the ball out of the primary ball handlers’ hands, will be to work the quaffle through secondary ball handlers and wing chasers. If chasers like Mitch Brown, Ben Stonish, and Mitchell Vargas are able to find open shots or dish to off-ball options like Alyssa Giarrosso and Jack Moseley, Whiteout will be able to score enough goals in the half-court to win the series.

Last season Whiteout ran almost exclusively mark defense. With question marks at beater and the sport generally trending towards zones, expect Rochester to throw out a mix of mark and zone. Whiteout lacks big bodies outside of their keepers so they’ll rely on their depth of smaller, shiftier chasers to stop Raider drives and intercept passes. If the Raiders primarily drive as they did against the Riff, chasers like Sollie Gominiak, Joseph Lombardi, and Caleb Van Buren will need to step up and make hits.

On the offensive end, the Raiders actively pushed the pace against a short-rostered Riff team. It will be curious to see if the Raiders are looking to play consistently at this pace for the remainder of the season. In the half-court, the Raiders offense looked at times to be indecisive with errant passes or missed shots. The majority of their goals were dunks, both from straight line drives or from drives and kicks. Going up against a much more physical opponent in the Whiteout - who have both USNT and USNT-talent quaffle players - Toronto’s ability to penetrate the middle of the keeper zone as well as find their form from long range will be the keys for their success.

A huge factor for the Raiders heading into this weekend will be which beaters separate themselves from the pack in a clogged beater rotation. Against the Riff, an argument can be made that nearly all beaters had successful moments, but from a minutes distribution perspective it wasn’t clear which beaters are locked up as the top four. Most successful franchises in the league allocate the bulk of their minutes to two beater pairs as the season progresses. Will this be the series where Dutt, Hersch, Kahane, Makuch, Scherger, Sherwood, Smithson, Taylor, or Zhu step up and make an easy decision for Head Coach Howard?

The biggest question marks for Whiteout are at the beater position. With Ashley Dolan and Justin Barnard both absent from this series roster, Rochester will need some younger players behind Patrick Callanan and Emily Hickmott to step up. The duo of Brady Grow and Erin Parkinson are favorites to solidify themselves in the rotation, followed by the U of R pair of Madeleine Fordham and Josh Tombline. With little keeper experience on the team beyond Ashkar and Keefer, Whiteout would likely prefer to keep Keefer in a green headband, but he’s always on standby if needed.

The seeking game looks to be fairly even. Toronto had success against Cleveland with two snitch catches and Rochester brings with them a solid rotation headlined by Kit Powpour and Keefer. Regardless of how good both teams’ seekers may be, without an elite snitch at the series snitch catches will likely come down to whichever teams’ beaters are able to buy their seeker the first look.

Rochester’s star power and East Division / USQ season experience gives them an edge in this series, but Toronto is a talented team coming off a very successful opener. We expect this series to be very close, especially down the stretch.

Prediction: Rochester 2-1