One week after the Boston Cannons defeated the Ohio Machine 19-13 at Harvard Stadium the teams will do it again, in Ohio, in the regular season finale.
Should the Cannons complete the sweep they will clinch a spot in the MLL playoffs. But the Machine will be playing in front of a home crowd and trying to put on a good show for the faithful fans and for one of its own players in his last game.
With last week in mind, here’s how the Cannons and Machine match-up unit by unit.
Attack
The Cannons are incredibly deep at attack, with arguably the best unit in the entire league. The entire offense starts with Ryan Boyle, the great feeder from X. He ripped apart the Machine defense with a goal and five assists, finding all the holes.
Kevin Buchanan can play either attack or midfield, but from the wing he’s dangerous. He scored four goals last weekend and has 28 goals in 11 games this season, really creating a big three with himself, Boyle and Paul Rabil.
There’s also MLL leading-goal scorer Matt Poskay—who scored three times last weekend—and Ari Sussman, who scored two goals last weekend to up his total to 19 in seven games.
The Machine doesn’t have the depth of the Cannons, but they do have a starting trio that is pretty good. Jimmy Connelly had three goals last week adding to his breakout second season with 24 goals in 12 games.
Steele Stanwick is the next-coming of Ryan Boyle. His silky-smooth passing and great vision has earned him 17 assists in eight games, good enough for sixth in the league.
Finally there’s lacrosse’s version of the “Human Highlight Reelâ€, Chazz Woodson. An All-Star this year with a few SportsCenter Top 10 plays, Woodson had a goal and an assist last week.
Midfield
The Cannons have Paul Rabil, arguably the best player in the league. He scores goals and has added a new passing element to his game, with a career high 37 assists. He exploded for three goals—including a rare two-pointer—and three assists against the Machine last week, which earned him the Offensive Player of the Week honors.
Mid-season acquisition Martin Cahill scored only his second goal of the year last week and will look to build some momentum off that score. Mike Stone, with 19 goals this season, failed to get on the board last week, one of only two times this season he hasn’t registered a point.
The Machine midfield is led by Connor Martin, who flips between attack and midfield since the arrival of Stanwick. Martin is tied for second on the team in points and scored two goals against the Cannons last weekend. Also scoring twice was Joe Cummings, who has scored in all three games he’s played in this year.
Defense
The Cannons have some big names on defense as well as on offense. PT Ricci is a steady performer week in and week out for the Cannons defense as well as on the wing on face-offs. Kyle Sweeney is a nine-year veteran, and Jack Reid and Mitch Belisle have been physical presences in the back for the Cannons for the past four seasons.
They also have Brian Farrell, an All-Star this season who can also get in the mix offensively, scoring a two-point goal against the Machine last week.
The unit has helped the Cannons have the second fewest goals against total.
The Machine will be playing Saturday’s game for Brett Hughes, an Ohio-native who came back to the league from the LXM Pro Tour to help launch the Machine and has announced his retirement following this season.
He’s played in 11 games this season and is joined on defense by Greg Bice, another All-Star and friend of Hughes’. Bice added a goal last weekend against the Cannons.
And then there is Kyle Hartzell. Hartzell is trough defensively but he is also a very skilled shooter. He’s fifth on the team in points, behind four attackmen. He has 10 goals this season.
The Machine defense will have another challenge against the loaded Cannons offense, just like last week, but at home and motivated for their partner Hughes if they can shut down one of Rabil, Buchanan or Boyle they could stymie the Cannons offense enough to pull the upset.
Face-off
Chris Eck is one of the best in the league and he had his best game of the year last week against Ohio. Eck won Player of the Game honors after going 24-32 from the face-off X and picking up a season-high 13 ground balls. In his past two games Eck has won 68.3-percent of his face-offs.
Eric O’Brien is the Machine face-off man since they traded Anthony Kelly. He’s only won eight face-offs in each of the past two games and has a 44.7 winning-percentage this season.
Goalie
Jordan Burke gave up 12 goals last weekend—including one two-pointer—while making 14 saves. He had nine saves in the second half last week, preserving the victory, but he also gave up an 80-yard goal (deflected, but still). Burke does own the second-best goals against average in the league (10.97).
The Machine seem to go back and forth every week with who will start in between the pipes. Last week Brian Phipps played all 60 minutes. He made an impressive 19 saves, but the Cannons did have a bit of a shooting gallery going and still scored 17 goals against him. Phipps made 12 saves in the second half as the Machine attempted to make a comeback. His 13.64 goals against average in six games is sixth-best in the league.
Still, in an attempt to give the Cannons a different look the Machine may look to Stefan Schroder. He is ninth in the league with a 14.76 goals against average. In his last three games, however, he has lowered the amount of goals he has yielded per game.
