Fast Takes with Fast Break: San Antonio v League City

Authors: Ashton Butler & Chase Contreras

PC: MLQ

After a month off that was hopefully filled with practice, the San Antonio Soldados take their talents to Huntsville, Texas to have their second duel of the season, this time with the League City Legends. The Soldados are coming off of an emphatic win against the Kansas City Stampede where they were able to secure a sweep. While a sweep sounds great on paper, their games were far closer than a sweep would entail, including a 40 to 0 run at the end of game run to steal the game by just one goal. San Antonio now advances towards their next opponent while adding some key players back onto their roster. Major returning players for this Soldados team has to start at their beater line as they will regain the UTSA beating duo of Javi Tijerina and Kyle Bryant. This duo has been a leading force for their UTSA squad which made back to back collegiate finals. Both players have a rather aggressive style of play which stems from their athletic ability and willingness to go all out for a play. The Soldados will also get the services of chaser Luke Langlinais. Langlinais is a hard-nosed chaser that creates an energetic force that is willing to step up to get physical with any chaser in quadball, and his defense alone will be a big boost to this Soldados team. While the team benefits from their gains in players, they also find themselves at a loss without having beater Jess Markle for this series. Markle showed out in their opening series against Kansas City where she had 4 stops and averaged 1.52 dodgeballs which led this Soldados beating unit. The Soldados will look towards Milena Sousa, Kyle Bryant, and Sam Watson to hold down the fort in Markle’s absence. Another massive loss from their first series to this one is utility player Trevor Smith. Smith was a key player for this team in the seeking game as he caught the flag runner twice in their opening series against Kansas City in which he “called game” with both catches. Isaac Sueltenfuss will look to take the reigns as a seeker in this series as he was the only other seeker to make an attempt in their previous series. This League City team comes into this series really hot as they are just two weeks removed from their first series since July 18, 2022 vs Kansas City. This Legends team is blasting into this series at full strength, led by coach Hayden Boyes and the season debut of assistant coach Brandon Kubena. League City will have a full roster at their display this weekend as they will also return the chaser play of rookie Billy Nellums who had a breakout debut series against New Orleans. This League City team comes in filled with speed and a hustling mentality as they bolster the roster with speedsters such as Raymundo Nunez, Dylan Mandel, and breakout star Andrew Acosta. While San Antonio is hungry to come out and reclaim their place at the top of the south, League City is just as hungry to prove that the Austin series wasn’t a fluke. 

The major headline for this series is a matchup of last season’s top scorers of Miguel Esparza who led the league in scoring and Hayden Boyes who was tied for second in the league in scoring. This matchup has spanned over many years as the two have a history of matching up with each other. With changes to both players’ scenery this offseason, how will the two differ their playstyle to counter the other?

San Antonio’s key to winning this series will be how they manage their beating game. While the core is led by Daniel Williams and Milena Sousa, the question is how will the depth of this beater core react to dealing with the club-heavy beaters of the League City Legends, led by Baldemar Nunez. Nunez leads the Legends in every statistical category among beaters except for average dodgeballs, especially that of an astounding 130 drives played through just 6 games played. The question for the Soldados will be what they plan to do to stop Nunez. League City has a lot of depth within this roster, many lines which span 4-5 players deep, and the Soldados will need to make sure they can maintain a strong line that will not only keep their players fresh but also make sure that their best players are out there when they are needed most. Another major key for San Antonio will be to capitalize on mistakes made by the League City chasing core. League City, as a team, averages 14.33 turnover per game which is the highest amount in the entire league among teams with a winning record of .500 or better. San Antonio needs to get into the passing lanes to disrupt the Legends’ passing rhythm in order to create turnovers and bad shots which may ultimately lead to points in the fast break.

Ultimately, this is a hot series to watch for anyone to tune into. The series of the week will fly south for this weekend, and it should be a series filled with highlight plays made by star players. While I will not make a prediction on the series due to my affiliation with the series, I will say that if you do not tune into the series, you will be missing out dearly.

By Chase:

Well, the Legends shocked all of MLQ and nobody expected it. The Legends came out swinging a few weekends ago against the most recent MLQ champion in the Austin Outlaws and surprised everyone by taking the series 2-1. The Legends came out in the same fashion as they did in the NOLA series, scoring a lot and scoring early. In the first game, you could kind of see it caught the Outlaws off-guard in a way. I don’t think anybody expected the Legends to score that many, that quick against the Outlaws. Then by the time the Outlaws had caught back up, the Legends just looked like the better team throughout the game. They were composed all throughout games one and two, unlike how they looked against NOLA. Against NOLA it looked like they could score, but would get too comfortable and then fall short in the end.

               This weekend the Legends look to go ahead and secure their bid for MLQ Champs against the San Antonio Soldados. Which across MLQ, the Soldados are everybody’s favorite to come out of the South on top, so this weekend could get very interesting. The Legends know that if they do not win one or two games this weekend, their chances of going to MLQ champs slim down heavily. This is the first time in a long time that the Legends will have to travel to play Kansas City, meaning, they might not have the roster they truly want. All that to say, the Legends need to play as hard as possible this weekend if they hope to secure a bid to champs, and I genuinely think with the roster they have for this weekend, it is looking very promising for them.

               The Legends roster this weekend probably looks the best it is going to look all year. They have the seeker they want in Juan Acevedo. They have their all-around speedsters in Hayden Boyes and Andrew Acosta. Brandon Kubena and Billy Nellums are coming back from injuries which are going to be very big help on the defensive side of things. They have all the beaters they need to try and stop Daniel Williams, so I think that this Legends roster has a very good chance to beat this Soldados roster.

               Now, I think San Antonio has a very good roster and are obviously not going to go down without a fight, and with stars like Daniel Williams and Miguel Esparza on the roster, it is definitely not going to be easy for the Legends. They have David, they have Matt, they have everybody on their roster this weekend that they need to potentially beat the Legends. I think the real question is have the Soldados fixed the kinks in their system. In their first series, they went against a very short-ended KC team, and in some of the games it honestly was closer than it should have been. If the Stampede can do that against the Soldados while having a very short roster, imagine what the Legends can do against them with the full roster that they want.

               This weekend I think the Legends surprise people again. I think the stars are aligning too well for the Legends for them not to win this series. With legendary performances from Baldemar Nuñez and Hayden Boyes already this season, I think they keep it up and the whole team has an even more legendary performance that will shock the world.

My Prediction: League City 2 – San Antonio 1