Photo Credit: Di Miller
On June 18, the MLL held their weekly Coaches Conference Call and Denver Outlaws Head Coach B.J. O’Hara was asked about the Outlaws being 6-1 and two games ahead in the MLL standings. Coach O’Hara said:
“I guess we’re as comfortable as we could be—with the amount of talent in the league and the competitiveness, you never get to comfortable. We’re just the next game away from slipping. We’re happy with where we’re at, but we also know we can still improve a lot. We played a pretty good game on Saturday evening, but it was far from perfect. I think the guys realize that and hopefully we’ll build on what we’ve got so far and keep improving.”
What impact do you think that Curtis Dickson has had in his first two games with the team? O’Hara said:
“First of all, he’s really brought a lot of personality and fits in really well with the group—you always wonder these things when you bring a new guy into the group. He’s just meshed really well with all of the other guys and I know they enjoy having him around. On the field he’s been excellent. I think he’s even going to get better as he gets used to going against a long stick—he hasn’t played against a long stick in quite a while. He’s started to figure that out and he’s able to get his shot off with a lot of pressure, which is nice to see. He moves the ball well. We’re pleased. We’re still piecing it together and we’ve still got a couple of more guys to try and fit in going forward.”
What do you see with rookie Brent Hiken taking his first face-off attempts and his roll moving forward? He said:
“Well, we threw him to the wolves a little bit, sending him out there against New York face-off specialist Greg Gurenlian, who is one of the very best. He actually won his first one against him and was thrilled. Then I think he realizes that it’s a big leap from college to professional, particularly at the face-off position. But he’s one of those face-off junkies and Anthony Kelly has been mentoring him a lot in practice. I think that’s going to reap dividends for him down the road. We’ll use him when we feel we need to. He understands that this is sort of his internship, he’s learning the ropes. But we’re pleased with where he’s at and he did a good job and battled against Greg pretty tough, so it was good to see.”
How do you think teams approach matching up against a deep Denver defense? His response was:
“I think one of the things that Curtis brings us we were getting a lot of double-pole, putting a short stick on one of our attack—usually Chris Bocklet. With Curtis out there, I think they threw a short stick on him twice Saturday night and he scored both times. Then they changed their posture really quickly. I think we may have taken some of that out of the equation. Looking at it from a defensive perspective, I think sometimes you could drive yourself crazy worrying about the perfect matchups. It really just comes down to every guy doing his job individually on defense. And, if you can do a pretty good job and keep the slides to a minimum, I think that’s a better mindset than just worrying about who is matched up on whom. Everyone is a professional and should be able to contain with some help. So that’s been kind of our mode. We switch a lot; we switch on all of the picks, things like that. A lot of teams won’t do that, but we do. We feel like our guys individually are challenged to stop their guy.”
The final question to Coach O’Hara had to do with the status of Chris Bocklet. Coach O’Hara had this to say:
“Not sure yet, he’s day-to-day. He’s still going to therapy and still in some pain. We haven’t ruled him out for this week by any means. He’s working to get back into the line-up. When he does get back in we’ll obviously have to think about how we’ll use all of our other offensive pieces—who plays attack, who plays midfield, things like that. It’s a good kind of problem to have. We still have Zack Greer, who is just about ready to go too, I’m not sure exactly when yet. He injured his elbow at the end of the indoor season, that’s why we haven’t gotten him in uniform yet. I think he’s just about ready, so that just adds another piece to the puzzle.”
As the In Lacrosse We Trust Beat Writer for the Denver Outlaws, I’d like to thank them for their assistance and professionalism as a MLL franchise. As always, they are a pleasure to work with.
