There’s no time like the playoffs. Baseball has it’s “Hunt for October”, lacrosse has “August Clash”. The 2013 season has been more than thrilling, especially after the all star break. Ohio has taken teams to the final whistle multiple times. Denver is in solid control of first place. Hamilton clinched a playoff spot with their commanding win over Boston. Chespeake has their destiny in their own hands. New York has not done well, depending too much on talent rather than chemistry. Rochester has some life left in them, as they cross their fingers. Charlotte and Boston are praying that one slips up.
Denver is 12-0 heading into the final two games of the regular season. They’ve punched their ticket to Philadelphia already and will try to keep their undefeated reign going. Standing in their way are the lizards and Nationals. New York will try to spoil the Outlaws perfect season and hopefully end on a good note. We may have the opportunity to a preview of the MLL Championship game when Denver travels across the border to duke it out with Hamilton. Is this the year the black and orange hoist the Steinfeld Cup?
Hamilton is another playoff bound squad after they took down Boston 17-12. The Nationals hop on a plane and travel south to Charlotte, where they will meet the hungry Hounds. Charlotte is not a team to toy with right now as they are dogfighting to get into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. They may be able to rest their guys with their playoff slot filled, but with this game being so important to Charlotte, who knows what Coach Huntley will do.
Chespeake is on the fence, so to speak. They finish up their season with back to back home games both against two playoff hopefuls in Rochester and Charlotte. There’s no room for error with Coach Cottle’s squad as the defending champs try to make it back to championship weekend. A win here could seal the deal, but a loss to either squad, could make the playoffs harder to reach as the Bayhawks beat the Rattlers earlier on in the season and lost Charlotte just a little over month ago.
Charlotte sits idly in fourth place. Their win over Ohio, and Boston’s loss to Hamilton, were huge momentum boosters. Like Chesapeake, there’s no second chance’s. It’s gut check time and with the Nationals coming to town, the Hounds will have to play hungry. They need Boston to lose once more to give them some room to breath. It’ll be hard with their season ending against Hamilton and visiting the Bayhawks. Winning out their season is their game plan.
The four game winning streak seems like months ago for the Boston Cannons. They’ve now lost two in a row, tallying twelve goals in both contests. Paul Rabil had hardly any shots in their game against Hamilton, scoring only one two-pointer and his only shot in the first half leading to a Brett Queener goal. Compared to their companion Charlotte, they have a somewhat easier season ending schedule with both Ohio and Rochester coming to play at Harvard Stadium. The Machine are looking to play spoiler against any team they can, while Rochester clings on to life, also trying to put the playoff fire out for another team and hoist themselves up in the standings. If Boston isn’t careful, one more loss could be the end of their post-season dreams.
Rochester is tied with the Cannons at 5-7 and also have the one game win over them. This is great news for Coach Soudan’s squad with their final game of the season being against Boston, giving them a hopeful edge. They do have to go through Chesapeake first though, who beat them only by three in their first meeting. What also puts things in a spiral is the split games they have with Charlotte. If they beat Boston and Charlotte dumps out, along with a win versus Chesapeake, Rochester could have a real shot at making the post-season. This could very well be the last couple times Rochester makes an appearance on the Major League Lacrosse circuit. It gives a whole new incentive to the team that these final two games are crucial to win. When Rochester shows up to play, they can win. Only they can control their future, and hope for Boston and Charlotte to slip up. We will see which team shows up come Saturday.
New York and Ohio. Not much to say about these two teams’ playoff dreams, seriously, they won’t be in them. New York plays Denver Saturday, which they can hope to defeat the undefeated and get a head start on next year. Ohio has one of the hungriest teams on the field and can make the post-season very distant for Boston. The squad is looking to get their second and third wins of the season and go out in a big way. These two teams, Lizards and Machine, will meet in the final week of the MLL regular season.
Playoffs are a crazy time in any sport, but when you have teams on the fences, not able to cough up on mistake, that’s when things get interesting.
