Wins: 8 Losses: 6 Games Back: 2 HOME: 5 – 2 AWAY: 3 – 4
POST- SEASON = Wins: 1 Losses: 1 Games Back: 1 AWAY: 1 – 1
Rochester’s 2015 is a tale of two teams. On one side, a dominant yet at times beatable Rochester’s impressive defensive ability, overall offensive chemistry, and superb leadership carried them to the regular season title in 2014, and falling just short of the championship a year ago. On the other side, a 2015 Rattlers team with a lot to prove began to show some promise after a rough start 2 – 2 start, a sidelined injury of their best defensive player in Mike Manley, along with a rotating door on offense and defense made a potential post-season team out of the spotlight. Yet, both teams managed to reach the championship game, but both fell just short.
The Offense: WPCT: .571 GF: 185 2ptGF: 7
POST- SEASON = WPCT: .500 GF: 22 2pt GF: 0
Mark Matthews: 5 Goals, 1 Assist, 6 Points
Kevin Rice: 4 Goals, 1 Assist, 5 Points
Randy Staats: 3 Goals, 2 Assists, 5 Points
Rochester’s offense commanded their season, but heavily from the attack position, and not from midfield. Rochester’s revolving line up was evident in their play throughout the season. In the second home and home against Ohio, they adjust their offense into heavy picking off the wings starting at the midfield, while in another, they rotated 2015 Offensive League Player Jordan Wolf and Syracuse rookie Kevin Rice from up top and at X.
In another game, complementary scorers did most of the work in transition while the offense mostly acted off-ball. Teams couldn’t actually game plan for Rochester’s offense, because Rochester’s offense didn’t know what it would do week in and week out. Despite this, or rather, because of this, their offensive lineup was vast compared to other teams.
Without renaming Jordan Wolf, Jordan MacIntosh, Dave Lawson, or Jeremy Boltus, the Rattlers’ rookie stars and other returning players proved major dividends throughout the year. Mark Matthews has found a home in Rochester. After starting out well in Denver and having an awkward and unsuccessful run in New York, Matthews fits right into an offense surrounded by heavy Canadian/Iroquois box stars. Asked to do a lot in a little amount of time, Matthews delivered, being key in big moments throughout games.
In a word, the Denver alum was a lot like the Rattlers in one player. When confident and comfortable, he was difficult to beat, but when faced with extreme opposition, he underperformed. Meanwhile, Syracuse rookies Kevin Rice and Randy Staats operated brilliantly. Cracking the lineup on such a studded offense was one thing, but delivering like they did spells a great future for Rochester. Plenty of times did the two connect for an assist goal that ‘Cuse fans such as myself are all too familiar with, and with Staats likely to join the NLL a long side his other comrades such as Matthews and MacIntosh in the box lacrosse world, Rice and Wolf with Boltus will make a terrifying starting lineup in 2016.
The Defense GA: 185 2ptGA: 7
POST SEASON = GA: 24 2ptGA: 1
Joel White: 1 Assist, 12 Groundballs
John Lade: 6 Groundballs
John LoCascio: 11 Groundballs
Will Koshansky: 2 Groundballs
Much like both the teams in ’14 and ’15, the defense was night and day for the Rattlers. Primarily a defensive team with good offense last year, Rochester won games by limiting their opponents best offensive with a defensive unit that maximized all aspects of defense, shutting down their top guy (Manley), erasing the off-ball sidekick (Lade), and sparking transition and collecting groundballs (LoCascio and White).
This year, with Manley down, the defense was asked to do much more, and it showed. White played spectacularly, but dressing under five defensive players with a revolving door of defensive midfielders was going to catch up to Rochester sooner or later, and it was much later, in the biggest stage. The old adage is that defense wins championships, which Rochester tried to manifest in the first half of the Championship game, though it was ultimately for not, the result of playing aggressive defense without back-up.
Face-Offs weren’t the best friend of the Rattlers either, resembling the 2014 Syracuse University team for the most part this season. The A-Train Anthony Kelly was released from the Outlaws. Coach Soudan should make a wise decision. John Galloway, like Mark Matthews, was the epitome of the Rattlers season, though this was more evident throughout the season. When he is having a great game, he is the best goalie on the planet. This is a fact.
However, Drew Adams will always seem to loom over him in the MLL because of his consistency, a problem Galloway had a major issue with this season. In fact, the words consistency and John Galloway appeared more times together than consistency at attack or even defense. Revolving defensive personnel and coaching while playing were the ultimate factors in his underperformance, but Galloway is a mainstay in the Rochester lineup.
Their best move next season is to build a stronger defense with Galloway at the center piece. A returning Mike Manley and a Brandon Mullins draft from Syracuse fits that mold, allowing six poles plus a defensive midfield to return Rochester to its superb defensive prowess. Echoing the words of my prior article, despite all these problems, Rochester hung with the top team in the league and controlled the vast majority of that game, and their season, despite being heavily weakened. It was a disappointing end, and congratulations to the MLL Champs in the Lizards, but Rochester’s ability to make it back to back has a type of merit not fairly recognized.
When Chesapeake or the Barrage returned to their finale games for a second straight season, they did not crawl and force their way through battered and bruised. Despite the turmoil on the field, Rochester proved that they were still a force in the MLL. Wounded, weakened, but a force nonetheless. In that respect, they’re winners, and will be hoisting that Cup once more sooner or later.
