Fast Takes with Fast Break: New York v Boston
Authors: Riley Hodder & Tad Walters
PC: MLQ
The biggest rivalry in Major League Quadball takes the pitch again this weekend: the Boston Forge vs. the New York Titans. Both teams are coming in on an upwind: new players, new identities, and a clean sweep against their smaller opponents in the East: the Washington Admirals and the Charlotte Aviators. After a contentious tweet claiming an 18-0 sweep this season, the New York Titans finished opening weekend with a clobbering of the Admirals. Even with Game 3 being closer than the score showed, with score lines of 175-70, 210-90, and 175-60, it’s hard to argue New York’s dominance. Meanwhile, Boston brought the hammer down at home last weekend, and Charlotte just couldn’t take the heat. While there were times in each game that the Aviators kept up with the Forge, the end results of each game showed you just how much of a domination it was: 235-60, 255-40, 220-105.
While the teams are coming in on somewhat even footing, there is no one in the quadball community arguing that these are the same team. New York has taken up a godly portion of the quadball community's attention with their impressive roster, and Boston has been an unknown identity, burned into the minds of those with their eyes on the East. But there are still big questions going into this series, on both sides. And it will be Boston and New York’s answers to those questions that decide who will come out of this weekend with the biggest win of their regular seasons.
Against the Admirals, the Titans came out fast and aggressive, applying significant pressure on defense, and pushing the pace on transitions (ala chaser Frank Minson) to overwhelm Washington. For the Titans, opening weekend saw the appearance of many Titans rookies like Amiri Rivera Sillah, Elizabeth Lawson-Keister, Ryan Leary, but also returners to the program like Michael Parada and Kellan Cupid. New York took the opportunity of playing a lesser team and went into its depth, with 11 players scoring throughout the series. That puts the Titans tied for second in the league for numbers of players to record goals this season. They are, however, tied with Boston and San Antonio in that particular category.
Against the Aviators, Boston did what Boston does best: Max Havlin and Lulu Xu dominated the beater game, and that is what ultimately led to wins. Beaters would cause chaos and Carsen Olazaba, Peter Lawrence, Andrew Steinberg, or any other of their chasers, would pick up the ball for a quick and easy goal on the run. Facing a smaller, less athletic team meant that Boston could beat them when things moved quickly, both in size and in strength. And this advantage meant that, despite their historic lack of a physical defense, the Forge weren’t all that threatened by the Aviators when they found themselves standing at their own hoops. At the end of the day, the Charlotte series merely illustrated what we all already knew about Boston: they’ve got talent. But we knew this. We knew that their all-star roster was going to walk out onto that field and be all-stars. When a team like Boston is facing down a team like Charlotte, that’s all you need. But when a team like Boston is facing down a team like New York, however, you need a lot more.
The Titans’ opening series saw big contributions from the regulars: Jon Jackson, Lindsay Marella, and Frank Minson. But joining those players in scoring 5 or more goals were players like Annika Kim (6 goals), Zach Armantrading (5 goals), Michael Parada (5 goals), and Mohammed Haggag (5 goals). While that’s an impressive list of goal scorers for New York, something to consider going into this Boston Forge series is that Forge’s two high scorers, Olazaba and Lawrence, combined for 26 goals in their last series alone. Olazaba managed 14 goals, closely followed by Lawrence with 12, making them second and third in the league as goal-scorers respectively.That’s especially impressive compared to Titan’s two high scorers, Minson and Marella, and their combined 15 goals. Olazaba will be out this series with an injury, but the New York Titans have picked up the X-Factor, Josh Johnson.
Coming off a recent USQ Club Championship, and before that an MLQ Championship, and before that a World Championship, Johnson is the missing piece New York needs to take them all the way to the Benepe Cup Championship in August. Defensively he’s a black hole, stopping shots and sometimes intercepting passes over the the top of the hoops with a huge vertical. Everyone in the country knows his game offensively, and if you don’t, you should. A serious driving threat, a deadly mid-range shot off a convincing stutter step, and he also has a penchant for no-look dimes to cutters attacking the corners. He’s incredibly hard to guard, and that will make his teammate’s jobs much easier. Expect Johnson to have any immediate impact against Boston.
Now as big of an impact Johnson will have, we can’t gloss over the elephant in the room: the beater game. New York played through their depth fairly evenly, however outside of Tate Kay and Tessa Mullins, none of the other 7 beaters played more than 21 drives. On the other hand, Boston had 5 of their 8 beaters play 20 or more drives in their last series, showing a stronger dedication to, but also a reliance on, two pairs: Max Havlin and Lulu Xu, and Kieran Collier and Leeanne Dillmann. Havlin and Xu demonstrated their domination in Week 2’s stats, with average dodgeballs at 1.68 and 1.75, respectively, and boasting an impressive plus/minus of 19. But they weren’t the only ones: Collier had an average 1.81 dodgeballs with only five less drives played than Xu, and Erin McCrady boasted a plus/minus of 12 over 20 drives.
Out of the top ten beaters with the most drives stopped, Boston claims 3 of those spots, while New York doesn’t even have a player grace the list (Kay comes in at #13 with just 3 drives stopped). Boston also has five of the top ten spots for average dodgeballs with Collier taking the #1 spot, compared to NYC which only has two players on the list. The most damning of the beater comparison is that Boston has 5 of the top 7 plus/minuses in the league, which includes the top three spots (Havlin, Dillmann, Collier). New York barely sees the list with Kay and Mullins at 9 and 10 respectively. Beater statistics don’t tell the whole story, and Boston and New York’s previous opponents have to be considered when comparing the numbers, but the real question of this series is: Will New York’s beater depth be enough to keep Boston from creating opportunities on offense, or will Boston’s two strong pairs dominate while on the field and keep New York from racking up the number of goals their chasers are capable of?
Even just to take a game off a monolithic team like New York this season is going to require a team. And if there is one thing that the Charlotte series did show us, it’s that Boston doesn't know how to play like a team, at least not yet. We barely got to see them set up in a half-court offense, and at times, it seemed like there were two entirely separate games going on: the beater game, and the chaser game. So there’s no telling whether or not they’ll be able to bring it in half-courts against a threat like New York, and when they're being put at a physical disadvantage, they can’t count on fast breaks. And the thing is, presenting a strong half-court to the Titans might not even be enough. The Titans have a ton of talent, and so even if Boston meets them half-way, they could be outclassed, outmatched, and outrun. If Boston wants to take a game off of New York, they’re going to have to put in the work on their half-courts and have a strong strategic advantage, which their non-playing Head Coach Harry Greenhouse might bring. But to beat New York twice, when they’ve had the chance to adapt, will take a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work for this untested, patchwork quilt of a team.
The three games between Boston and New York this weekend is the series of the week, but it might just be the series of the season. Two untested teams that consistently rank high in the league face off for the biggest rivalry in MLQ. But this year, we get to see if New York is truly as talented and unbeatable as everyone thinks they could be, we get to see what kind of team Boston can be this season, and we get to see the height of what the East division has to offer.
Will New York’s triangle-and-one defense challenge Boston, or will Forge’s quick off-ball cutting and elite shooting abilities cause the Titans trouble? And finally, will Josh Johnson deliver in his debut for the Titans, or will Boston take a game (or more) and call Johnson on his ambitious tweet at the beginning of the season? Because, no doubt about it, when New York and Boston line up on opposite sides of the quadball and dodgeballs this weekend, it’s the East division on the line. And as we’ve seen in years past, bracket placement at the Benepe Cup could just make or break a team.
As for which team gets made and which gets broken? We’ll see for ourselves this weekend. Safe to say, though, that it’ll be a fight worth watching.
Prediction: New York 3-0
