Roster Reactions: East Division
New York - Ben Mertens
PC: Major League Quadball
After years of suffering with the unimaginable pain of being just another city, New York is ready for its turn at the center of the quadball world. Years of building and rebuilding, huge leaps forward, always followed by heartbreaking last-second defeats, culminated in New York’s oldest USQ team the Warriors (with an assist from some key, out-of-state players) finally taking home the USQ championship. Now their MLQ counterparts will look to follow suit.
The Titans have felt on the cusp of this moment for nearly half a decade. In 2019, they snatched their first game ever from their Boston rivals and took Austin to the brink in that year’s semifinals, then followed it up with their first-ever division title in 2021 and a trip to the MLQ finals, where they fell short against perhaps the best Austin team ever assembled. In 2022, when many pegged them to take a step back amid a wave of departures, they only narrowly lost the division crown to Boston in a close 2-1 series and then again pushed Austin to a 3-game series in the semifinals.
Is this the year the Titans break through? They have a roster loaded with Team USA talent at every key position, a deep supporting cast, and an experienced coaching staff that showed an ability to make critical adjustments throughout last season. New York’s dream for the Benepe Cup starts at beater, historically the position where they have always been a step behind their nemeses in Boston and Austin. That should not be the case this year, as Tate Kay looked utterly dominant in the Warriors’ run to the USQ title. While he won’t have Warriors teammate Hallie Pace during the MLQ season, by the time championships arrive, he will have Rachel Ayella-Silver, one of the best beaters in the game, back from the injury that robbed her of most of last season.
If Ayella-Silver is not ready to go for early series, or the team prefers to partner her with Devin Lee or Jason Rosenberg (both of whom Ayella-Silver has played with in the past) the team can partner Kay with Tessa Mullins, an electric young talent with speed and arm strength to match Kay, who was instrumental last season in filling Ayella-Silver’s shoes. Or they can partner Kay with Warriors teammate Christian Barnes. Or how about Emily Hickmott, the extremely gifted utility player and longtime veteran whose addition to New York everyone seems to have missed amid the hoopla over Austin’s offseason moves? Whoever the team pairs Kay with, they have an extremely deep stable of beaters, a welcome development after injuries at the position piled up during their run last year.
The pair of Lee and Ayella-Silver, if New York chooses to go that direction, has been a stalwart pair in New York for years. Lee’s trademark high jumps to avoid opposing beats serve him well on both offense and defense, and both players are fearless about pressing into the opposing teams’ keeper zone to create looks for their teammates. While Lee prefers dodges, Rosenberg, like Ayella-Silver, loves to go for catches as well as blocks in exchanges, and his speed allows him to win back some of the throws he misses. The underrated Vincenzo Cicco, who was huge for the team last year and had a strong USQ season, adds to the team’s considerable depth, as does Jacob Elhrich, another newly crowned champion with the Warriors, the always reliable Phill Cain, and new Team USA addition and jack-of-all-trades Mo Haggag.
New York can realistically roster 10 beaters for a series and actually play all of them, as no two of these beaters play quite the same. Regardless of who is out there, expect New York to have its beaters aggressively try to win exchanges, create turnovers and get their offense moving in transition. With the new “no resets” rule and a beater group as talented as any in the country, New York’s beaters are going to try to take the fight to you on defense.
If you are unfortunate enough to let New York’s offense play in transition, things can go south fast. Headlining the chaser game is Team USA’s Jon Jackson, who has established himself as the best one-on-one driver in the sport, with the passing vision to slice you apart as soon as help comes. Even if you have your half-court defense fully set up it’s no easy task stopping Jackson, who can hit longer shots as necessary and is adept at finding the weak spots in your defense. His longtime partner at the helm, Lindsay Marella, has held down her spot on Team USA for seven years by continuing to improve her offensive game to go along with her top-notch defense. Her shooting has only improved over the years, and if defenses leave her with an opening while they try to zone up against Jackson, she can hit the lane and either drill the shot or draw the beater and find the right pass. The duo will have a plethora of top-notch finishers surrounding them. Their Team USA teammate Janko Gvozdenoivc, who was one of their favorite targets during the Warriors’ championship run and has a knack for getting open right at the hoop. Mike Li, who can finish alley-oops, drive and dunk, or rip shots as necessary. Head coach Frank Minson, who excels at completing the final pass against defenses scrambled by Jackson and Marella or just finish it himself. I would expect two of those three to start alongside Marella and Jackson.
When the Team USA stars head to the bench (and they will on a New York team that trusts its depth) there should only be the smallest drop in playmaking ability. Leo Fried, recently named to Team USA himself, was one goal away from winning a collegiate championship with Harvard last season. He’s nearly as deadly in transition as Jackson and even more eager to get out and run, and if he’s not quite as unstoppable at driving, he’s the best shooter on the roster and the threat of his shooting opens up opposing defenses in a different way. Similarly, Molly Potter’s long range shooting ability is going to draw out opposing defenses, which should create opportunities for the kind of quick multi-pass sequences against a rotating defense that the Titans excel at. Players like Minson, Li, and Vinnie Iannucci have years of experience as ballhandlers and can play on or off the ball, while younger players like Annika Kim and Kristin Forsstrom both look ready to step into larger ballhandling roles this year, coming off strong USQ seasons. Longtime vets, like David Hoops and Zach Armantrading, give the team more steady sets of hands to run the offense for stretches.
If the New York team has a weakness, it’s that they lack a true A+, elite-level point defender to put at the point of attack. But they have a lot of players just below that tier and they can deploy them as needed depending on the matchup. Iannucci, Li, Marella, Minson, and Chris Balasa will all get shots in that role, and if one of them can take one more step forward as a defender, New York will be even harder to break down. As it stands currently though, the team has one of the best hoop protectors in the game in Jackson, both as a shot blocker and an eraser who can tackle opposing drivers when they’ve gotten to spots deep in the zone that would result in goals against most other teams. Fried is a nasty shot blocker himself (and can also step up to play point defense if the team rolls out Jackson and Fried together, a look I expect to see more of this year), and the team’s beaters are fast enough with their feet and strong enough with their arms to cover a lot of holes.
If New York can make the finals, they should have a better chance to beat Austin than two years ago. Austin is the deeper team and rolling out a super team similar to that of two years ago, but only six players can be on the field at once, and New York’s top level talent is as good as Austin or anyone else. To have the best chance possible, New York needs to face Austin in the finals, ideally after Austin has begun to tire itself through difficult quarterfinals and semifinals like they faced last year. To ensure that, New York needs to win the East, which they have done exactly once in seven tries. They will once again open the season with a difficult bout against the Washington Admirals, and while New York has won that series both of the last two years, the margins have been close and Washington is similarly poised for a breakthrough season. Then there’s the small matter of taking on their arch nemesis and the defending Division champions, the Boston Forge.
Boston and Washington both feature those elite point defenders that New York lacks, beaters who have a ton of experience and are ready for the Titans beaters, and plenty of Team USA talent of their own. All three teams can reasonably think of themselves as title contenders, and all three desperately want the division title to give themselves the easiest path at championships. Two of them are going to be disappointed (one of them is going to be sorely disappointed and finish third, therefore being forced to go through the play-in bracket saturday morning at championships, while multiple inferior teams from other divisions get the morning off). All three of those series between those teams could go either way.
But something feels a little different about this New York team. Jackson, Marella and Kay have taken that extra step from “elite” to being contenders for best player in the world at their respective positions. Ayella-Silver is back, and if everyone stays healthy, New York will have two truly elite beater pairs with enough depth to keep them fresh for the biggest moments. Fried is getting better every season. The college players add youth and vigor to go with their considerable talent. The players who were on the Warriors finally got the monkey off their back by winning the USQ championship, while the players who were on New York Slice during the USQ season got to step outside their usual roles and expand their arsenal of skills which should serve them well. The coaching staff, led by Minson, consistently got the most out of the roster last season and I think they can do it again. With good health, this is New York’s division to lose.
Prediction: 11-1, first place in the East.
Boston - Michael Li
PC: Major League Quadball
Last season the Boston Forge reclaimed their spot as the top dogs in the East, winning their 6th Division Title and making their 5th Finals run before losing to the Austin Outlaws, an impressive return to form under their rookie Head Coach, Tom deMouth.
In the quadball game, the star of Forge is their keeper, Ian Scura. Scura who led the East (and was second in the entire league) in both goals and assists, is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic players on offense in the league, sneaking in shots from anywhere on the field. If the defense ever dares to leave them open, he can also drop dimes to dynamic cutters in Andrew Steinberg and Zach Doyle, who can seemingly finish alley oops thrown at any height and angle.
Athena Mayor, the other star chaser on Forge and newly added to the US National Team is an absolute swiss army knife of a player. On offense, Mayor is a multi-level scorer, able to score from range off a hammer set, drive through mismatched defenders, and assist when teams overcommit to stopping her.
On defense, the Forge are anchored by Taylor Crawford, who has been a premiere point defender for years on the Titans before taking his talents to Boston last season where he excelled as the front line in their zone and as a distributor on offense. With all these weapons in their assumed chasing starting line, the East will have their hands full stopping this onslaught of scoring and stout defense. However, Boston is going to have fill some holes in their chasing depth, especially with the departure of Ryan Pfenning and Chris Labudde, Boston is losing a lot of physicality from their bench. They will likely try to replace that production in David Fox who played for Boston in the inaugural MLQ season where they won the Benepe Cup. Fox can fill a similar role to Pfenning putting on big hits around hoops and busting through mismatched defenders for easy dunks with his size and strength.
On the younger end of the spectrum, Boston has added Mason duBoef and Claire Olmstead from the MQC-winning RPI program and Will Richardson from Brown where he led his team to the USQ Club Division II finals before bowing out to Texas State. DuBoef is a high motor driving threat with the ball in his hands, attacking the hoops relentlessly often times with defenders hanging off him. While duBoef seemed at times unstoppable in the college game we’ll have to see if that ability translates into the MLQ level, where duBoef is relatively untested, only having played on New York’s practice squad two summers ago.
The biggest question for the Forge this season is in their beater corps. Max Havlin, who has been mainstay of the team since its inception and considered by many to be one of the best players ever at his position, is likely to miss the early series of the season due to an injury sustained when the Boston Black Pandas played Cavalry at USQ Cup. To make matters worse, Steven Belitzky is not returning this season after playing many key minutes last season.
Boston will probably have to lean heavily on the talents of Kieran Collier, Leeanne Dillmann, and Lulu Xu who all have long histories taking their club teams on deep bracket runs in the USQ season. We can expect these three to play the aggressive beating style that has kept Boston at the top of the division for almost the entire history of MLQ, but if Boston wants to maintain their dominance in the East they’re going to need their depth to step up in Havlin’s absence.
The most notable addition to Boston’s beater corps this season has to be Jessica Lee from this season’s College Division I Runner Up, Harvard. Lee, a protégé of Havlin and Xu, plays very much in their style, unafraid to make the aggressive beats on defense and transition into leading the break on offense, clearing out an easy path for the chasers to score. Despite her small stature, Lee never shies away from physicality either, when unarmed Lee can often be found laying hits on armed beaters never letting them get comfortable, a trait that has been both invaluable for her team, but has also gotten her into foul trouble and left Harvard playing down a beater more often than they may have liked. There’s little doubt that Lee would be a good fit for this Boston roster, and if she can stay on the referee’s good side, will likely be a valuable contributor.
In a division as competitive as the East, any team’s success will be determined as much by their starters as by their depth. If Boston is able to plug the holes left by injuries and departures from the team they very well could win back-to-back division titles, like the Boston teams of old, but the margin for error is as small as it’s ever been for the Forge and the fate of their season may be determined by the minutes when their stars are off the pitch.
Prediction: 9-3 Second in the East
Charlotte - Alexander Wicken
PC: Major League Quadball
After temporarily joining MLQ as a trial expansion team in 2021 and competing again as a trial expansion team in the East Division in 2022, the Charlotte Aviators are looking to take flight in their first season as an official franchise. This season they bring a strong core of veteran players, joined by players moving up from the Practice Squad or coming to the team from the college and club USQ season, looking to improve on last year’s fourth-place finish in the East Division standings.
During the 2022 season, Charlotte scored at least 100 quadball points in six of their twelve East Division games, including two close games against the East Division champion Boston Forge. Based on last season’s performance and the Aviator’s quarterfinal run through the play-in bracket at MLQ Championships, Charlotte has the potential for some exciting upsets this season. Their season opens on June 10th in Boston as the Forge hosts the Aviators for a three-game series.
The Aviators return many of their top players from last season but will need to adapt to losing long time stalwarts in the Charlotte program: Trey Pressley, Quincy Hildreth, and Logan Hartman. However, their chaser line includes many of their staples from last season, like Madison Burns, Ryan Davis, Lee Hodge, Mohamed-Yahia Monawar, and some exciting new talent looking to fly to success. Their beater core returns seasoned players in Joe Goldberg, Kody LaBauve, and (newly minted USNT player) Celine Richard, who all saw big minutes last year. In addition to providing some massive quadball points for the Aviators, Davis is also a gifted seeker looking to rival some of the seeking greats throughout the East Division. Flag runner on-pitch scenarios, while difficult, especially with the deep beater lines throughout the East Division, can be turned into an advantage for Charlotte if Davis is able to get first looks against any flag runner.
The Aviators bring a talented line of rookies from last year’s practice squad and UNC Chapel Hill, who had a very solid regular season, earning themselves a D2 bid to nationals as a pot 1 team. Incoming talent for the Aviators include chasers William Forinash and Brandon Peterson, and beaters John Keyser and Nicholas Thompson who all played for the practice squad last season. UNC keeper/seeker Matthew Shaw, chaser/seeker Carynne White, and beater Lauren Hirsch look to carry their success from the college season and make their mark as rookies in MLQ.
Many Aviators saw playing time for the Terminus team that made the top-eight run at this year’s USQ Cup, and the team will certainly benefit from that chemistry and experience. Charlotte will need to build on that chemistry and have a cohesive gameplay strategy if they want to build on a competitive 2022 season. While the Aviators are certainly in a position to cause some chaos in the East Division and pull off some clutch wins, losing the aforementioned quadball players will make it really tough to pull wins in an ultra-competitive east division.
Prediction: 3-9
