Fresh from the Field: Emerson
By: Grant Hillyer
Emerson Team Review and Preview
Coming off a second-place finish in the Massachusetts Quidditch Conference Division 2, expectations for Emerson should be high coming into this season. Coached by MLQ Boston players and Emerson alumni Kieran Collier and Timothée Courouble, Emerson only graduated three players coming into this season. The rest of the 2019-2020 team was quite young and was largely composed of players very new to the sport.
Recent Graduates
The three players who graduated from the program, Anna Dannecker, Jose Cabrera, and Kat Wahlen will undoubtedly be a loss. Wahlen took major playing time at the free beater position, often teaming up with Tessa Mullins. Wahlen’s smart decision making and field awareness often led to Emerson regaining control off of Mullins’ beats on offense. On film, it is obvious that Wahlen had chemistry with Mullins and the two communicated cleanly. On the chaser side, Dannecker’s ability on offense was also a large part of this Emerson team. Dannecker was able to make people miss on her own as well as make smart passes, play physical defense, and make shots to set her team up for success. Also graduated is Jose Cabrera, one of the stars of the Northeast region and MLQ Boston player. Cabrera was one of the Northeast Chasers of the Year last season, and his speed and ability to play on the wing was a massive part of Emerson’s offense. He was also extremely tough to drive past on defense, often locking up opposing players and even forcing quaffle turnovers.
Emerson’s Beating Group
Last year also saw the emergence of Tessa Mullins as star beater for the team, a player who can play both the engage and free beater roles very well. Then a junior, Mullins was the other Emerson player to be recognized with a positional award in the Northeast. Always knowing when to engage, Mullins’ play on offense worked well with Emerson’s chasers and created openings for Cabrera and other chasers to take drives. She chooses smart battles and set the offense up for a lot of their success last year. On defense, Mullins’ ability to win battles with her smart decision making and ability to make tough catches put a lot of pressure on opposing offenses, often opening up fast breaks for Emerson or forcing bludger control turnovers.
With the graduation of Kat Wahlen, finding a beater partner to pair with Mullins should be one of Emerson’s top priorities. Last year, a few different team members played behind Wahlen. One player is current senior and second-year player Jess Costas. Costas is very active on her feet and with pump fakes, and has shown an understanding of how to use space on defense to create pressure on quaffle players. Another player to keep an eye on is Danny Dessner, who was new to the program and is a sophomore this year. Dessner is very active as a free beater, especially without a ball in hand. There are a number of plays on film where he steals a bludger or otherwise causes disruption on the field when the other team has bludger control. Playing as a free beater on defense, he also has shown signs of reading the field well and reacting appropriately to opposing offenses.
“Sierra Delk, a third-year chaser/keeper and captain on the team. Sierra has experience ball carrying and playing on the wing, so she will be a large part of the Emerson offense moving forward. A good example of her capabilities came in a game against Providence, when she carried the ball up and handed it off before cutting to get open and set up a goal.”
Chasers Stepping Up
On the chaser side, Emerson has a number of up and coming players. One of them, Annie Kew, had a very exciting game against the Providence Ashwinders towards the end of last year. Kew had a hat trick against Providence, consistently getting open on drives and fast-break opportunities. Another player to keep an eye on is Sierra Delk, a third-year chaser/keeper and captain on the team. Delk has experience ball carrying and playing on the wing, so she will be a large part of the Emerson offense moving forward. A good example of her capabilities came in a game against Providence, when she carried the ball up and handed it off before cutting to get open and set up a goal. She is a player who can function in multiple roles on offense, and will be asked to do so this year with the team losing some of its top scorers. Rob McPherson is another player that played well for Emerson last year and is now a senior on the team. He takes space very effectively and scored a ton on fast breaks last year. In fact, he was the MQC’s third-leading scorer in the 2019 spring semester. Even with the loss of Cabrera and Dannecker, Emerson has talent and players who can recreate the success of last year's offense and even elevate it.
Other players to look out for include Molly Shoughnessy, Annie Bennett, and Julia De La Fontaine. Each made their way into the lineup last year at different points and flashed. With playing time opening up, any of them could take the step forward to replace graduated seniors. On the defensive side, there might be more of a hole to fill. Both Dannecker and Cabrera were tough, physical defenders who contributed a lot to Emerson’s defense. Filling that void might be difficult, and we will have to see who steps up to fill it. Julia De La Fontaine is one player who showed very active instincts on defense last year, so she could be the one who helps carry on Emerson’s tough defensive style.
In Review and Looking Forward
Emerson has an exciting group of players coming back, both on the chaser side and in the beater group. How they do this year will be a test of how their new players develop and if the team as a whole can step up and fill the void left by big graduations from many of last year’s top Northeast teams. Emerson is in the D2 grouping of MQC, with a shot of being promoted to D1 at the end of the year based on how they finish compared to the other D2 teams. Competing in D2 with them are Middlebury College, Brandeis, UMass Amherst, Skidmore, Clark, and the recently added Brown University. Middlebury and Brandeis definitely have the talent to hang with Emerson, and Brandeis went 2-2 against Emerson last year over 4 games and finished just behind them in the D2 standings. They will also compete against the D1 teams in the MQC which include Boston University, Harvard, Tufts, RPI, and the newly promoted University of Vermont.
In order to take the next step, Emerson’s offense will need to find more consistency. The team lagged a bit on offense last year, averaging five goals a game, three behind the national average (statistics from FastBreak News’ game archives). Emerson’s opponents this year will have to deal with multiple scoring threats, as well as very good beaters opening up opportunities for them. That should help them grow on offense, and the beating corps will give the chasers plenty of space to work with. Emerson’s chasers and beaters also worked well together last year, so hopefully that chemistry and communication carries through to this year. On defense, Emerson gave up 12 goals a game, three more than the national average (from game archives). Losing Anna Dannecker and Jose Cabrera, two key defensive players for them, will certainly not help. However, if players like Sierra Delk and Julia De La Fontaine keep building off what they put on tape last year, that will be a first step. If Emerson can take steps forward on offense and defense, they already have strong snitch on pitch success thanks to the play of their beaters and their seeker Emmi McIntosh. They had a 50% catch rate last year, which bumped up to 67% when counting only in-range games. Both of those rates were far ahead of the national averages of 39% overall and 37% for in range games respectively (Fast Break game archives).
All in all, this Emerson team should be competitive this year. They might struggle early on as they adjust to the losses of Cabrera and Dannecker, re-tool their offense, and create more structured drives. I expect them to do especially well against teams who are playing with inexperienced beaters as Mullins looks for another beater of the year award. Emerson might struggle early on against teams who have high-scoring offenses while their new players grow, especially if their opponents feature strong driving threats. Of course, a lot depends on how the spring actually looks and if rosters are at full-strength. Rosters and teams are obviously facing a lot of problems getting to practice right now due to pandemic restrictions, which is a variable and impact that is hard to predict. Look out for Emerson this upcoming season as they look to develop new players and make a push towards the top of MCQ D2 and in the Northeast, as well as defend their title of best uniform in U.S. Quidditch.
Author’s note: games reviewed included Emerson against Providence and Harvard at MQC Meet 3, Emerson’s game against University of Rochester at NERC 2019, and Emerson vs Brandeis at the 2019 MQC Opener.
