Fast Takes with Fast Break: Charlotte vs Boston

Authors: Serena Monteiro & Naresh Edala

PC: Major League Quidditch

This Saturday the Charlotte Aviators will have their season opener against five time East Division Champion and three time Benepe Cup Champion, the Boston Forge. These games will be Charlotte’s first time playing against Boston on the Forge’s home turf. Both teams will be playing their first games of the season and we expect another exciting East Division matchup. (If you didn’t catch the nail-biter New York/Washington series from last weekend…go watch!)

Results from last season’s Aviators/Forge series had the Forge come out on top with a 3-0 sweep with scores of 190-60, 140-95 and 125-50. While the end scores reflect favorably on the Forge, looking at pre-snitch release scores, the Forge found it difficult to put up many goals against the Aviators when Charlotte’s beaters weren’t focused on the snitch game. 

Chaser Game 

With Jayke Archibald, Teddy Costa, and Grace Dastous––longtime cornerstones to Forge’s chasing lines––not returning to play this season, on paper, the Forge seem to pose significantly less of a scoring and defensive threat than they did last summer. Will the Aviators be able to take advantage of the Forge’s emerging chaser lines and pilot themselves to victory?

Two players who will make their debut in Forge jerseys this weekend are Taylor Crawford and Peter Lawrence–previously of New York Titans fame. Crawford and Lawrence both bring much needed physicality and driving ability that the Boston chaser corps is looking to find. Looking to fill Dastous’ cleats, Boston rostered a long list of strong female talent. From longtime franchise players who have already made names for themselves such as Morgan Bertram and Athena Mayor to newer talent such as Mary Scott, Rachel Manhardt, and Jordan Smiley (who recently played huge minutes to achieve Tufts’ Final Four run), Dastous’ starting spot looks like it will be in good hands. 

Charlotte’s chaser lines are also experiencing some growing pains with the loss of Jess Daly, Erin Smekrud, and Diana Howard. However, many of their chasers are returning to MLQ after a full USQ season of playing together on Terminus: Madison Burns, Ryan Davis, Lee Hodge, Quincy Hildreth, and Trey Pressley just to name a few. Last year Davis was known to bail the Aviators out of some tough offensive looks with their midrange shot. However, the addition of Tommy O’Conner will provide much needed stability into the second line- similar to the role that he played last year on Rochester Whiteout. Charlotte’s advantage over Boston is that this past USQ season their chaser lines had the opportunity to further develop their chemistry. This chemistry and long term practice together should give Charlotte an advantage over Boston whose chaser lines are newly built and bring together athletes from many different teams and differing levels of quidditch experience.

Beater Game

Alright, enough about these chasers! Let’s get to the position everyone’s really dying to talk about for this series. (Author’s note: this was co-authored by a beater). One exciting beater matchup to watch for is Boston Forge’s Steve Belitzky vs his former University of Rochester teammate–now Aviators rival– Perry Wang. Both Belitzky and Wang have fast and aggressive play styles and both routinely make hyper-athletic plays, jump-dodging bludgers and making diving catches to avoid beats.

Another beater that viewers should be excited to see on the pitch is Boston Forge’s Lulu Xu. Xu went out with an injury last July before Boston played Charlotte, but she began playing again in April at the end of the USQ season. It will be exciting to see how she matches up against the Aviators deep beating lines, but especially against talented Aviators beater Celine Richard. Xu and Richard exhibit similar sneaking styles on offense showing off bursts of energy and extremely intelligent play-making during transitions from defense to offense. Richard and Xu can have strong impacts on the pace of the game for their teams. It will be fun to watch how they react and respond to each other's tactics.

Overall, beater talent on both teams runs extremely deep with many differing play styles.  Whether it’s Max Havlin’s fast-paced and explosive play versus Joe Goldberg’s insane catching ability or Leeanne Dillmann’s ability to use her voice organize her team on-pitch versus Kody LaBauve’s more quiet and methodical approach, the beater talent on both sides of the pitch are sure to keep spectators engaged as these teams go head to head. Making adjustments in response to how each beater pair’s style is matching up with the competition and affecting game play will be key to each team’s potential victories this weekend. 

Coaching Staff

Boston’s non-playing Head Coach Tom DeMouth gives their team an advantage over Charlotte and other teams they will play this season. A non-playing coach is advantageous because they are not worried about their own in-game performance and are able to devote 100% of their time and energy at the series to watching the game develop as a whole, making adjustments easily from the sideline rather than getting a more simplified view if they were on pitch. This weekend will be DeMouth’s debut as Head Coach and a chance for him to display the path he has been forging for this year’s Boston team.

Conclusion:

All three games should be very close and should be an excellent followup to the series of the week from last weekend. Charlotte has shown immense improvement throughout the season last summer and went into Championships and took a game off of New York on Day 1. However, Charlotte struggled in the half court last year and how much they have improved in that facet of the game will determine whether the series is competitive. While, I dont see these games becoming blowouts- the team that leaves victorious will be the team that can run a more efficient half court offense and limit transition opportunities. This should be advantage to Boston because of the return of Lulu Xu + the fact that this Boston Forge team returns 20 people from last year’s roster. The youth that is turning heads on Charlotte will get a great learning oppurtunity this weekend but it might be a bit too soon to ask Charlotte to incorporate their youth against a seasoned Boston team.

Prediction: Boston 3-0