Being the “Denver” guy means that, naturally, I cover the Outlaws. While my rooting interest should be pretty obvious I find it important to remain as objective as possible. Why mention this at the outset here? Because what follows is probably going to sound like a total homer piece, but I’ll get to the rationale behind these comments in a moment.
First of all, if you’ve ever read my MLL Power Rankings in these pages it should be pretty clear that there are two outliers in MLL this season and the rest is up for grabs. New York is an outlier at one extreme and Charlotte appears to be at the other. The rest? I could probably give my one-year-old a stack a note cards with a team written on each and let him determine the order on any given week.
All of that said, Chesapeake comes to Denver on Sunday for a tilt at Mile High Stadium. Colorado is a state that boasts 300 days of sunshine every year. No one here seemed to get the memo in 2015 as the entire month of May has been a continuous rainstorm. Why is this relevant? Because Sunday night’s game is going to be cold.
The Bayhawks look much better than they did last year, when their wheels were just squeaky, but totally deflated and disconnected from the chassis. Right now Denver and Chesapeake are tied for second place in the league table. Watching the Bayhawks play New York last week come so close to knocking off the Lizards got me really pumped for this match up. I have to admit that I fear it won’t live up to the height. Chris Rosenthall reported on Friday that Matt Mackrides suffered a concussion and likely won’t dress, and Ben Hunt suffered a pulled hamstring, earning him a trip to injured reserve. With Joe Walters still playing in the NLL and Brendan Mundorf not close to returning the Bayhawks don’t seem quite as scary.
Yes, Drew Westervelt should add some punch to their attach unit, and they picked up Zach Greer as well, but wait, Greer is still playing in the NLL so nevermind that. The human clear, Matt Abbott, continues to be a bright spot at the midfield and working well with former Orange Jovan Miller, but the later moved to the Ohio Machine.
The point is this: the bright spots that existed for the Bayhawks in the first few weeks of the season are fading. Sure, Tyler Fiorito is having a great campaign, but take Hunt and Mackrides out of the mix and the team that was just starting to gel against New York looks like it will take more steps in reverse than in a forward direction this week.
Compare this with the Outlaws, a team that got a major spark last week when their bevy of NLL players returned to the fold – Grant, Holding, Noble, and Ward – should continue to cohere. Denver’s weakest area this year has been its close defense (which I would argue is partially responsible for Schwartzmen’s numbers), but Chris O’Dougherty returned last week and Dillon Roy is healthy. This is all a step in the right direction. Combine that with the continued improvement of Ken Clausen every week and the Bayhawk attack unit doesn’t look as scary as it once did.
In other words, these are two teams at the top of the standings headed in different directions. The Outlaws are starting to put it together and the Bayhawks are in danger of falling apart. Is this a bit of an alarmist take on Chesapeake? Sunday should help clarify that question.
