This past weekend was week three of the Premier Lacrosse League in Philadelphia! There were a few bumps in the road for the teams of the former Irish, but the boys still played great.

Mr. SportsCenter

Jake Taylor has once again made the Sportscenter Top 10! At this point Jake Taylor and the Sportscenter Top 10 go together like peanut butter and jelly. On top of his crazy between the legs goal that made the top ten, he also racked up a few more points including a goal where he leveled his defender. Truck stick.

We highlight the goal where he levels his defender because it is one of the many aspects of Jake Taylor’s game that has been highlighted after joining the PLL. In college he was known for his crazy finishes from on the crease and off of GBs. He is still doing those, hence the continued top ten appearances, but his game is less focused on that. But it’s still amazing that his on-ball production is measured in fractions of seconds.

The differing playstyle of the PLL players has allowed him to be a lot more physical both with the ball and, as we have mentioned in previous weeks, without the ball. With how impactful he has been so far, we look forward to the continued impact of Jake Taylor, especially when CJ Kirst comes back from injury and is added to the line up.

The Kavanagh Rollercoaster

On the weekend we had CKav down from his normal (though still putting up a point in his game), but PKav exploding onto the scene with his first career hat trick in his 4 point game.

As much as we try to play it as a joke, the Kavanaghs may actually have clutch in their DNA. With the Outlaws down big early, PKav’s 3 goals all came back to back to back to tie the game up and put his team back in it.

With this performance, it feels PKav has finally settled into this outlaws team as they begin to understand the team dynamic with 4 ball dominant Tewaaraton winners. 

The Redwoods were handed their first loss this weekend, and we would like to point out the fact that this is the first weekend where CKav and Garnsey have been low scoring, with only one goal each.

It seems as if even though the duo of Garnsey and CKav might not be the Redwoods’ only prominent and effective scorers, they do seem to set the tempo and feeling of the game. For the continued success of the team, it seems it would be in their best interest to get that duo going. 

We don’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly though, as CKav is second in touches in the league behind only his brother, and he’s been in the league for only three weeks. It will take a bit more time to get the full picture on whether this was just a slow weekend, or if something is actually wrong like defenses adjusting to his tendencies.

That had to hurt

The Notre Dame heavy Redwoods’ and Cannons’ defenses has once again been stellar. While he have gone on and on about how they impact their teams on the stat sheet, they also have been dominant in off the stats plays.

It is truly crazy that even over how loud these games can be, over all that noise you can still hear how loud the slap checks of guys like Garrett Epple and Arden Cohen are. On multiple occasions each game we find ourselves wincing as how badly those checks must hurt.

And these hard checks aren’t just to hurt their opponent, but have a purpose. As almost every youth coach says to their defense, if you make the offense feel it when they try something, they are less likely to do it again.

That has been correct so far this season as those wailing hard checks have put Arden at the most caused turnovers in the league, and Epple not far behind him in fifth.

The Atlas wasted Entenmann’s hot start this weekend. He  had a 100% save rate leading to an Atlas 6-0 run, and he kept a crazy high save percentage even through the second quarter until the Whipsnakes began to score. The Atlas defense began to struggle in front of him, and the game ended with him still above the normal “requirement” for a good game with a final save percentage of 53% and 17 saves. The Atlas should be kicking themselves for not taking advantage of Enty’s hot start.

With an offense as high powered as the Atlas, Entenmann putting up 17 saves should always mean a win for them. However the sheer number of shots Entenmann is facing is crazy. This Atlas team’s only problem is helping out Entenmann. If they solve this they will be very successful.

Up Next

Onto next week for the Whipsnakes homecoming weekend in Baltimore. The game slate for the weekend is Atlas (Costabile and Entenmann) vs Waterdogs (Taylor), Cannons (Epple, Kielty and Ramsey) vs Whipsnakes, Archers vs Outlaws (PKav), and Chaos (Dobson) vs Whipsnakes. It should be a great one!

There is some concern that Pat Kavanagh is listed as questionable on the injury sheet, but it looks like we might be close to seeing the return of Sergio “the Motor City Hitman” Perkovic with the Chaos.

**One last note: as of this writing, there are rumors that Carter Parlette will be picked up by the Redwoods to replace the injured Chris Merle. Parlette would fit in seamlessly with the Redwoods’ Notre Dame defenders and not need to learn their vocabulary.  We hope it works out for him!

#GoIrish

ND-ATL 2.0