Fast Takes with Fast Break: North Championship - Indianapolis vs Toronto
Authors: Ittaana Krow & Sam Nielsen
Toronto:
This weekend we have the battle of the middle class in the North Division with the Toronto Raiders facing the Indianapolis Intensity. Both teams come into this series sporting a record of 3-3, having swept the 3rd place teams in their conferences, Innovators and Riff respectively, but also getting swept themselves against the top-seeded teams in the Monarchs and Whiteout. The winner of this series gets to punch their ticket to Championship weekend while the loser will have to play more games on Sunday for the chance to qualify.
The Toronto Raiders come into this weekend nursing a few injuries from their last showing against Whiteout. In that series we saw the quaffle players from the Raiders struggle to handle some full-court pressures as well as the general physicality brought on by the Whiteout. A few players stood out in Michael Howard, Andrew Kusters, Joanne Lam, and Michael Wanless as they provided a sense of calm when on the field and were able to run solid half-court opportunities without coughing up turnovers; however only Kusters and Howard are listed on the roster. How the Raiders survive the minutes these players are not on the field may decide their fate this weekend.
Intensity presents different challenges than what the Raiders have seen this season. In the quaffle game they will most likely see more conservative zone coverages, typically a 2-2 and in the beater game going up against a veteran core that knows how to play together; I’d expect big swings to maintain bludger control. It seems after the last two series the beater depth chart for the Raiders has been figured out and expect big minutes out of Brittany Kahane, Alexander Scherger, Cory Smithson, and Derek Taylor. Their ability to control tempo might make this a track meet, which falls into how the Raiders have been successful this season.
Over the course of the season, the Raiders and Intensity are nearly identical in Quaffle Points For (QPF) and Quaffle Points Against (QPA) but the big separator is the Raiders’ ability to catch snitches. The Raiders have caught snitches in four out of their six matches played while Intensity have only come away with one catch and have a league leading four games that had no catches. The trio of Smithson, Matthew Bunn, and Levi Medeiros will have to come out and be clutch to give the Raiders the slightest advantage in a series that should go back and forth.
Prediction: Raiders 2-1
Indianapolis:
The Indianapolis Intensity enter the North Division Championship fresh off of a disappointing 0-3 sweep by the Minneapolis Monarchs, and are hungry for a series win against the Toronto Raiders to clinch their spot at MLQ championships and as a clear top-three team in the division. Intensity played that series without star chaser and head coach Nathan Digmann, whose absence was clearly felt on both offense and defense. Digmann returns this weekend, completing a roster that brings together many of the most effective pieces from Indianapolis’ previous two series.
Other than a few roster changes however, Indianapolis did not mix up their style of play much between their first and second series, and are not expected to again for this matchup. Intensity should come out maintaining their 2-2 zone and diamond-shaped offense, leaning on their solid beater corps for both defensive stops and offensive space. The real difference came in the effectiveness of the communication and timing between beaters and chasers, which was excellent against Detroit, but somewhat out of step against Minneapolis. If they can return to the clean coordination between beaters and chasers we saw in their first series, Indianapolis should be favored in this series.
On offense, Intensity found success against the Innovators’ aggressive beating, but struggled to find driving space against the Monarchs’ more conservative structure. Some of this was clearly from Digmann’s absence, but Indianapolis’ general approach of welcoming a beater confrontation and then quickly attacking the other side of the field was much less effective against the conservative beaters. Toronto has shown fairly aggressive beating on defense in their two series so far, but may need to take a page out of Minneapolis’ book in order to generate repeated defensive stops in this series. If they don’t, Digmann and the rest of Indianapolis’ quick perimeter ball movement will likely score quickly and frequently. Between shots from Digmann, drives from Cole Collins and Monica Marion, and good cuts to hoops from Mary Owen and Kennedy Murphey, Indianapolis has lots of ways to score once they get their offense moving.
On defense, Indianapolis’ chasers have been overall less effective than on offense, and have leaned pretty heavily on their beaters to back them up and get stops. While this worked well against Detroit, Minneapolis often had minimal trouble getting past Indianapolis’ point defenders, leaving their beaters to handle the rest of the Monarchs’ quick ball movement and good off-ball positioning with limited success. The Raiders’ play so far this season has not shown the level of ball movement and off-ball positioning the Monarchs needed to get past this defense, especially if Indianapolis is able to continue keeping a heavy dose of bludger control and is able to play more consistent point defense. Indianapolis is bringing fewer beaters to the North Division Championship than their previous series, most notably lacking Distin Minnick, but should still have plenty of success relying on their experienced rotation, especially assistant coaches Matt Brown and Danny Yaacoub.
The one area of the game where Toronto clearly has an advantage on Indy is the snitch game, where the Intensity have caught one snitch in six games, compared to four for the Raiders. Tad Walters had the only Indianapolis snitch catch of the season against Detroit, but Intensity elected to primarily keep him elsewhere on the pitch against Minneapolis, only going in during catch-to-win situations. If this series produces close games going into SOP, Indianapolis will likely need Ally Manzella or another seeker to come up with a catch or two in order to win the series. This tournament lacks the almost uncatchable Adil Abdalla, however, so with a different snitch heading up their series, we may see a difference in snitch catch percentage.
Prediction: Indianapolis 2 - 1 Toronto
