Fast Takes with Fast Break: Kansas City Stampede
From Wild West to a New Best?
The 2024 Kansas City Stampede
Ryan Hsu
Team Context: When considering the upcoming season for the Kansas City Stampede, it is important to recognize their history as a team within the region post-COVID. Below are two tables that compare their season records and roster changes since 2021 to supplement this preview. It is important to note that while the last three seasons have resulted in a 5-7 regular season record for KC, the opponent that they have beaten 2-1 in a series has changed every year.
*Each series in bold was a part of the super series for that year. LC = League City Legends, SA = San Antonio Soldados, AUS = Austin Outlaws, NO = New Orleans Curse. (H)/(A) represent home and away series respectively.
Last season: The 2023 MLQ season was a tale as old as time for Kansas City. With another year of significant roster turnover, the Stampede saw the unfortunate departure of 15 players including star chasers Darian Murcek-Ellis, Joe Goulet, and Sydney Boeger. The team, however, once again excelled at recruiting new talent from its successful Mizzou and Creighton college programs, backfilling those losses with the pickups of players such as Zero Scarborough, Bitzy Archibold and notably, Riley Usami, who lead the team at 23 goals scored in the regular season over just six games.
The Stampede’s season began once again with a matchup with two seed and rival San Antonio, who they defeated the previous season at home 2-1 in an electric golden-goal game three. However, with a series away from the KC “Cattledome” this time around, they were convincingly defeated in a 3-0 sweep, followed by another long distance away series against League City, who had swept a short-rostered Stampede 3-0 in 2022. Even though they dropped game one to the Legends, their improved roster, determination and strategic adjustments secured them the next two games making their record 2-4 going into their superseries against Ausin and New Orleans. The results of this super series mirrored the year prior, with the notable exception of three in-range games against New Orleans in which KC seeker, Danny Rendon, would come in clutch with two flag grabs to help secure the Stampede three crucial wins.
With these results, the Stampede demonstrated consistency in spades, replicating their 2021 and 2022 regular season record of 5-7, and finishing once again as the 3rd seed in the South going into the MLQ Championship. Starting with a bye in the play-in bracket, they would first meet and lose 90-145 to the Minneapolis Monarchs in their state of Devine intervention, dropping to the losers bracket. From there, the Stampede bounced back with some southern hospitality in the form of brutal fast-breaks, trampling the Detroit Innovators 210-90, followed by a close, catchless win over the Charlotte Aviators 130-110. With a quarterfinals placement in sight, the young KC squad fought hard against the tenured Boston Forge, but a dominant Forge FROP period would result in a 60-165 loss and yet another play-in bracket finish for the Stampede.
Returning Players:
Aaron Stout (Boom Train)
Justin Dewick (Boom Train)
Brenna Duncan (Boom Train)
Brian McClannahan (BosNy)
Bitzy Archibold (Twin Cities Quadball Club)
Lauren Curry (Twin Cities Quadball Club)
Riley Usami (Creighton)
Madi Namanny (Creighton)
Danny Rendon (Creighton)
Miles Himmelmann (Mizzou)
Keighlyn Johnson (Mizzou)
Vincent Reyes (Mizzou)
Jackson Herdade (Mizzou)
Aaron Grant (Kansas University)
Billy Quach (Unaffiliated)
Robbie Wallace (Unaffiliated, Mizzou non-playing HC)
New Players:
Chanun Ong (Boom Train)
Ben Engels (Boom Train)
JD Hopton (NY Slice)
Ryan Dickey (Twin Cities Quadball Club, played for the Stampede in 2022)
Katelyn Branstetter (Twin Cities Quadball Club)
Ryan Mehio (Creighton)
Tanner Sato (Creighton)
TJ O'Connor (Creighton)
Anya Ortiz (Creighton)
Ryan Cleary (Creighton)
Derek Dearking (Blue Jay)
Haley Grothaus (Mizzou)
Sydney Boeger (Mizzou, played for the Stampede in 2022)
Lauren Smith (Mizzou)
Breakdown:
College: 17
Creighton: 9
Mizzou: 7
Kansas: 1
Club: 11
Boom Train: 5
TCQC: 4
BosNy: 1
NY Slice: 1
Unaffiliated: 2
Notable Losses:
Sena Morimoto (The Warriors)
Zero Scarborough (Mizzou)
Matthew Gulick (Creighton)
The Season Ahead:
As per southern standard, in 2024 the Stampede will be faced with another tough schedule, perhaps the hardest travel schedule they have faced in the last 3 years. Their season will begin on June 8th with another marquee opener against the Soldados away from the Cattledome. The whole league will be watching to see how Kansas City’s strong influx of new talent faces off against the injection of Miguel Esparza and Daniel Williams back into San Antonio’s ranks. Expect this series to be physical and chippy as the Stampede push to replicate their 2022 series win.
Three weeks later, KC will have to travel again to Austin for their super series against the Outlaws and New Orleans Curse. The Stampede will be eager to see how they stack up against a restructured Austin Outlaws and a larger New Orleans squad. Will this season be where the scores deviate from years past? Or will Kansas City remain consistent and end up going even again, 3-3 by the end of the super series?
After a long stretch of travel, KC will finally play at home for their last series against the League City Legends. Despite the addition of Swathi Mannem to the Legends, the Stampede will certainly expect to earn wins here regardless of how the rest of the season went and look forward to a championship invitation.
Season Potentials: Despite precident, Kansas City should certainly expect to improve their previous regular season records of 5-7. With less turnover than in years past and a diverse skill set in the player pool they cultivated this year, expect a more cohesive unit that will be eager to prove themselves against a more talent-distributed south division. The potential for this team will lie somewhat in how feasible travel is for their players given the challenges posed by their schedule. Despite their situation, however, they should expect to match up favorably against teams like New Orleans and League City who didn’t see many notable roster changes. With goals of improving their record and making it out of the play-in bracket, the Stampede is likely to produce two 3-0 sweeps in these series.
Taking games off Austin still likely remains out of reach considering a lack of home field advantage against a still stacked roster featuring Jackson Johnson, Bailee Fields and transfer rookie Jay Stewart. Taking games off San Antonio early in the season when both teams are working to incorporate their new players, however, is certainly within the pasture of possibility. But, accomplishing this will be a brutal, uphill battle on San Antonio turf and will likely result in the same outcome as last season for the Stampede.
Overall Prediction: 6-6
Why they Won’t: There’s no doubt that Kansas City’s roster has improved across the board from last year and is poised to go over in their overall record and performance. The extreme level of talent they have brought in for chasers in JD Hopton, Ryan Mehio, Anya Ortiz, Lauren Smith, (yes I am still going), Tanner Sato, and the return of Katelyn Branstetter and Sydney Boeger is somehow matched in their pickups in beaters with Chanun Ong, Haley Grothaus, TJ O'Connor and Ryan Cleary. Despite all these additions, there is still one area of the game that has plagued the Stampede both in recruiting and gameplay: seeking.
Although the Stampede did catch twice against New Orleans in the 2023 regular season to secure the much needed sweep, those catches were the only two they got out of sixteen games all season. 2022 yielded a similar result going 3/15 in catches. As much as FROP is an area of growth for the Stampede, this problem also stems from the difficulties that its core college teams have had with catches. At USQ Nationals in 2023 and 2024 both Mizzou and Creighton were ultimately eliminated by teams who dominated the FROP period:
Mizzou
Eliminated by RPI in 2023 (115-110)
Eliminated by Harvard in 2024 (165-70)
Creighton
Eliminated by UTSA in 2023 (165-140)
Eliminated by UTSA in 2024 (195-150)
Notably, Creighton was up 130-80 prior to Flag Runner on Pitch.
Although Mizzou and Creighton have a better record against teams throughout the season, they have consistently struggled in high pressure games against teams that match them with parity. This helps explain the results of Kansas City last year at champs, where against teams like Boston and Minneapolis they struggled to face off against experienced FROP beater pairs like Max Havlin / Lulu Xu and Cody Narveson / Gracie Johnson with their respective seekers of Tyler Beckmann and Mike Devine.
Flag catches arguably matter more during MLQ where the majority of games reach parity at a high level. In order for the Stampede to reach their goals, they will have to address this weakness.
Why they Will:
Despite the challenges Kansas City faces with general travel and uncertainty in the seeker game, there are two compelling points in favor of the Stampede improving this season.
First, 2023 marked the first year that leadership reformed their practice system into “pods” to address the needs of a player base primarily split between Nebraska and Missouri. In this system, Creighton players and Mizzou/Kansas players practice in their respective regions, or pods, but still schedule combined practice time each month to develop chemistry across programs. This model is strengthened by having their coaches Brenna Duncan and Lauren Curry each present in their respective pods to incentivize more commitment to practices and series travel and foster a greater “team” culture. Their leadership combined with the veteran insight of players like Aaron Stout, Madi Namanny, and Brian McClanna-“hands” will create an environment where their players can excel individually in their pods and collectively in combined settings.
Second, the playstyles of the franchise’s primary college programs are extremely compatible. Mizzou and Creighton both excel when dodgeballs are down, dunking on opponents in transition. The fact that there is less player turnover this year combined with the capability of its new recruits to adapt will mean the team will become a cohesive, transition-heavy unit quicker than in the past. To supplement this aggressive playstyle, Duncan’s recent USQ season with Boom Train will also open up new possibilities for the franchise to either incorporate slower styles of play at critical points of the game or, (knowing the weaknesses of a slower style), modify their southern speed to punish teams for stagnant play.
Series Preview vs San Antonio
This Saturday, the Kansas City Stampede will be facing off against the San Antonio Soldados in the MLQ Week 2 Series of the Week. The intense history between these two teams and their respective USQ college programs cannot be overlooked. This year, with Mizzou having lost close games to both Texas State and UTSA at Brooms on the Brazos and Creighton’s tight loss to UTSA at USQ Nationals, the younger players on the Stampede will certainly be fired up coming into this series alongside KC veterans from last year, who got swept the last time they were in San Antonio.
Despite the intensity the Stampede will certainly bring into this weekend, the extreme travel distance for the franchise will once again result in a roster of only 16 players, 10 chasers and 6 beaters. Among its major absences include chasers Sydney Boeger and Riley Usami, and beaters Lauren Curry and Chanun Ng. Below is an example roster breakdown by position:
*these role assignments are purely speculation based on previous positions played and perhaps unrepresentative of what we will see this weekend.*
Although this squad of 16 is certainly capable of matching the top lines of the Soldados, endurance will be the true test for them as they push themselves across three games in the Texas heat. Talented chasers like Lauren Smith and Anya Ortiz will have to play nearly every minute of each game, with their only subs coming from the utility players within their bearer core: Madi Namanny and Brenna Duncan. These two will have to play with little to no breaks, switching between chaser and beater to adapt to the game-state. This roster shortage also includes the absence of last year’s seeker Danny Rendon, a key component missing from a Stampede who will certainly need to catch the Flag Runner in multiple games to balance out the fast-paced intensity the Soldados are sure to bring. Who will we see take the reins in Rendons absence?
In order to have a shot at beating San Antonio, the team will not only have to run their lines with extreme precision and adaptability, but also slow down the pace of play considerably to conserve their players’ stamina: a playstyle contrary to the nature of the franchise, its college core, and the South Division as a whole.
All eyes will turn to San Antonio on June 8th to see if this short rostered Stampede can in fact slow down the game and muster the endurance necessary to trample the Soldados. If they can succeed, it would go down as one of the greatest series wins in MLQ history.
The situation is dire, the stakes are high and there’s one question that all who are watching this series will need to answer:
Are you a bull-iever?
