Fast Takes with Fast Break: League City v Kansas City

Authors: Naresh Edala, Tad Walters, Fiona Wisehart

PC: Major League Quadball

Kansas City

This weekend the Kansas City Stampede will take on the League City Legends, after making one of the longest drives, almost 13 hours, in the league. Both teams are coming off big losses, with League City getting swept by the Austin Outlaws and Kansas City getting swept by the San Antonio Soldados.

While Kansas City has traditionally been mostly a mix of Mizzou and University of Kansas players, the latter has been replaced with a healthy dose of Creighton University players, including USNTDA beater Madeline Namanny. What's interesting about this specific Kansas City roster going down to Texas, is that every female athlete on the roster has historically played beater. However, with USNTDA beaters, Keiglyn Johnson, and recent Creighton graduate Lauren Curry, combined with the experienced veteran and Mizzou alumni Brenna Duncan, there's a solid chance we see Kansas City run a rare dual female beater set in MLQ. While Duncan, Namanny, and Cori Jobman all have chaser experience, with this much talent at beater, it'd be foolish on KC's part to force players into different positions just to run a traditional set. However, there is opportunity to see beater sets featuring Vincent Reyes and Brian McLanahan,  though both could and should find themselves in the chaser rotation.

With this all star line-up of women anchoring the beater game, we could see lines featuring shooters like Reyes and Creighton star Riley Usami, whose drive, juke, and midrange shot shredded defenses this past USQ season. Throw in Kansas alums Brian McLanahan and Ryan Dickey, or Purdue's Aakash Srinivasan, and we start seeing a fast and shot heavy offense, something League City could be very unprepared for.

One of the critical deciders of this series will be defense and for Kansas, it's going to be on the back of physical defender Zero Scarborough of Mizzou, who should be no stranger to the physicality League City will bring to the series. His USQ coach and Mizzou alum Robbie Wallace will also be sharing the defensive load, being a physical presence in the paint while the height of players like Dickey and McLanahan help them eat up shots on the hoops.  

Kansas City has all the tools to take this series on League City's turf, let's see if they can put the pieces together and find a winning combination deep in the heart of Texas.

League City

Another determining factor in this series will be team chemistry and the ability to coordinate the chaser and beaters together: not an easy feat given the significant turnover on both teams from last season and something both teams have struggled with. At times, this showed during League City’s series against the highly disciplined Austin Outlaws, forcing passes and drives on offense, particularly when Austin played a high-press defense. However, they also had some well-coordinated offenses and proved that they have what it takes to zip the ball around hoops efficiently, while getting dodgeball control back in the process. Given another few weeks of practice, League City will be able to convert far more of this swift ball movement into goals.

It’s tough to say what League City will look like on defense. They struggled to stop Austin’s shots, a team full of top-level shooters, but League City is also no stranger to mixing it up on defense - last year they played mark, 2-2 zone, and a three trees defense - including at least one series where they played all three. Their players are also certainly not afraid to get physical, which secured them some goals on offense during snitch on pitch.  Hayden Boyes and Great Usiaphre were among those who scored by driving through or around players. Sarah Stewart drove through players and then threw an assist to a teammate (apologies we could not see the jersey number on the livestream), who was quickly wrapped but was still able to wrench their body around to score on the small hoop. If League City can channel more of this physicality on defense and stop some more shots this weekend, expect each game to be close.

Prediction (Walters & Wisehart): Kansas City 3-0

Prediction (Edala): League City 2-1