MLQ Reply: Season 9, Week Two

Due to technical difficulties and time constraints, we were not able to air MLQ Replay: Week Two. However, our hosts, Naresh Edala and Jack McGovern, sat down with three key parties from the weekend.

Naresh Edala, Host: “Emily, this was your first MLQ series. How did that feel? What were your expectations going into this summer, especially after a somewhat shaky season for Boston last year? You’re coming in after having played with a lot of these Boston players with Pandas. What made you say, ‘Hey, this is the year I play MLQ?’”

Emily Frollo, Player, Boston Forge: “It was a ton of fun. I really enjoyed the first series. I think it was a good one to open with, let us get our feet underneath us, get used to playing with each other. It helps that part of my line, I’ve played with a bunch before with Pandas. Steiny was on Pandas two years ago before he went back to Harvard. Ian, I’ve played with for three years now.”

“Didn’t really have many expectations coming in. I have been playing for a lot of years. I don’t feel like MLQ is that much different because I’m still playing with a lot of the same people. It’s still the same sport, just playing it at a slightly higher level.”

“As far as expectations for the season, I think honestly we have a very talented, very deep roster. I think when we’re playing well we can compete with anybody, which is pretty nice. Honestly our beater depth is amazing, our chaser depth is really really good. We have top talent from multiple teams in the Boston area, so it’s a lot of fun to play with and I’m excited to see how we do.”

NE: “Who’s a better shooter, you or Ian?”

EF: “Oh God! I think Ian’s a better shooter, I don’t want to offend him.”

NE: “Oh that’s a hot take! I will say I’ve blocked an Ian Scura shot. I’ve never blocked an Emily Frollo shot. Shoutout South Regionals 2022. You ran up in the keeper zone, looked right, shot left, and I was like, you are the best shooter I’ve ever seen.”

EF: “I am a little sad that people will know me a little better now. It’s really fun to come out against teams and shoot like that and have them be like, ‘Who the heck is she?’”

Jack McGovern, Host: “Emily coming from Pandas, obviously Pandas were one of the first teams that made the commitment to play 3-3 in the U.S. at least. How has that prepared you for this season?”

EF: “Honestly, it just meant that this season doesn’t feel any different than the past three seasons I’ve played on USQ. I think it’s amazing that the sport is moving in that direction. I think it’s long overdue to recognize female and non-male players as a quintessential part of the sport. I think it will also hopefully push teams to actually feel the need to develop their female and non-male players, which is something that some teams don’t do the greatest job of, because they haven’t had to. But it doesn’t feel any different, I’m just playing the same thing with the same people.”

“I love playing with Athena, she’s one of the best female players in the sport, super fun to play with. Emily Hickmott had a great weekend. It’s fun to play with all of them. And yeah, I’m proud to be part of a team that kind of led that movement because I do think it’s super important and female players and non-male players will start to get more of the recognition they deserve because of it.”

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JM: “Sinan, if I could ask you a bit about taking the reins from Michael Howard this year, how has that been? How do you feel like your style has been different from his so far? And what are the big messages that you’re trying to convey to the team this year?”

Sinan Keyder, Head Coach, Toronto Raiders: “It’s definitely tough because it’s my first year coaching as well. Both me and the coaching team are learning as we go. I think what Howie did an amazing job of is, he was a great defensive coach. You can see that in the Raiders, you can see that in Team Canada in the World Cup last summer. Our staples were defense and beating and we really want to keep those, but I’m trying to bring a little more movement and fluidity on offense. I want us to keep moving always and bring a little more energy to the squad.”

“We also have a lot of turnover as well. We also have a lot of players who haven’t been coached under Howie before. I am their first coach, so it’s important for me to make my mark.”

JM: “Are there other teams or sports even that you feel like you get your inspiration from in designing an offense and how did the team do with it this weekend?”

SK: “Oh my god, there’s so many! I try to get something from everything. I’m from Turkey. I grew up in Turkey, so I grew up playing basketball. I learned the Balkan way of Xs and Os, so I try to implement a lot from that. But I’m also realizing a lot of players come from different sports backgrounds themselves, so some concepts aren’t as easy for them as they are for me. So I’m trying to convey my messages and my ways of running an offense from the perspective that they can understand from.”

“We even have an Instagram group chat where we send each other clips from different kinds of sports. I just sent them something from soccer yesterday. So yeah, we’re taking inspiration from lots of different sports.”

SK: “Because I grew up outside of North America, I’m not really super familiar with American sports. I do realize in general, when it comes to quadball, there is one group that sees it as ‘Oh, basketball with tackling,’ and there is another group that sees it as ‘Oh, rugby with shooting.’ I’m definitely in the first group, for sure.”

NE: “If I could jump in, I’d love to hear your thoughts about how hockey plays into this?”

SK: “Another North American sport with which I am not familiar with! We do have some drills from hockey, some warmup drills that I wasn’t aware of, that I learned as a player. I think Howie played and watched hockey and we still have a lot of players who play hockey. Even though I am the head coach, I look for inspiration everywhere. I have assistant coaches and we have a lot of veterans on the team that contribute ideas, and that’s also my coaching style. I do make the final decision, but I welcome ideas and opinions from everyone. I don’t generate the hockey ideas for sure.”

JM: “Any shoutouts from this weekend, players who you felt like were really buying into your philosophy or doing the kinds of things that lead to winning quadball in your view?”

SK: “I was thinking of naming our entire roster, because without my control, the team decided in the chat that whoever I namedrop has to do push ups in the next practice. I’m not going to do that.

“Two names come to mind. One is Lachlan Craig, he is one of our rookies and he was on the starting lineup. I love his enthusiasm. He’s always asking questions, he’s always hungry to learn more, and he’s listening well, developing very well. He’s really trying to put out on the field what I’m trying to convey to the team.”

“And the other shoutout I can give is Levi Medeiros. He switched from chaser to beater and his game just took a jump to another level. Everyone saw him as a young promising chaser, but then as a beater, everyone’s like, this makes a lot more sense for Levi’s playing style. He’s all over the place. He never stops running.”

JM: “Max Havlin took that route a long time ago!”

NE: “You had a pretty dominant opening weekend series. Granted, people are going to say it’s Cleveland and they’re not going to give you as much credit for it and that’s something we’ve seen that happens to a lot of Canadian teams. How do you take that and set the expectations for your team?”

SK: “Those negative views are definitely fueling us. Everyone’s aware of it. Everyone’s talking about them in the group chats all the time. We do have the attitude of let’s prove Americans wrong. We’re definitely using that. The thing that usually annoys us a lot is, it’s ok if you don’t know us obviously, not everyone watches the QC regular season. But ranking us low because you don’t know us is the mistake that teams tend to make. And we saw with Cleveland, what happens when you don’t know us. Every single quadball player that was rostered this weekend scored a goal. I don’t know if every team can say that about themselves, but we can. So everyone deserves some respect on their name, even though half the team are rookies.”

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NE: “You’re a head coach now. How does that change your responsibilities from the assistant coach that you were last year to being that person in charge with David Avila alongside you?”

Milena Sousa, Head Coach, San Antonio Soldados: “First of all, I couldn’t be more grateful or thankful for an amazing co-head coach. Just an amazing opportunity to get to coach alongside one of my friends and someone who I’ve played against for three years now at Texas State. But it’s been a really good experience to see the rise in responsibilities. I think last year was only my second season of MLQ and I was an assistant coach and it was very jarring, at first, the amount of responsibilities that I had. Obviously, not as much in comparison to the other head coaches, but it was still a lot for my second season, and I think having that under my belt made me feel very confident and easy going into this season as a head coach, and I didn’t have to be a head coach by myself.”

“To be transparent, I did have a few worries about making decisions by myself, being as young as I am and the experience that I have, and people being able to respect those decisions or just understand that I do know what I’m talking about and I just want that trust from player to coach that I also give to my players. Being able to have David back me up, and vice versa, has been really great. He’s a great morale boost on the sidelines and on the field as well. But it’s been really exciting to be a head coach after kind of watching from the sidelines last season and being able to make those decisions myself.”

NE: “Talk to me about you beating now. You put in 50 drives at beater. You are a DA chaser who has now switched to a beater who can still go in at chaser when needed. Your plus/minus was +6. You honestly were probably the best player from that series. I was really impressed with your beating decisions and the fact that you were just out there after having completely switched positions.”

MS: “It’s very hard. [Laughs] It’s not easy. It was a very scary change. Now that I can say that I’ve put in a lot of minutes, obviously chasing is a lot easier and when you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world, like it is when you’re beating. So there’s a lot more pressure to be making the right decisions.”

“I think the hardest thing for me was just confidence in my decisions. I feel like for the most part, I think you can tell in those first two games, I was ready to make a decision, but I was so scared of what could have happened, and it’s something that my beating partner Daniel Williams just keeps reminding me is that the best way to learn is to make those mistakes in practice, in game threes of series that we’ve already won.”

“The one thing he always tells me is if I throw my ball and I miss or it was a bad beat, just get the ball back. It’s a really big transition, especially endurance-wise and fitness-wise. But it’s been exciting. At first, it was scary, but I think after one MLQ series under my belt, I can’t wait to get back out there and fix everything that I’ve learned after watching film.”

JM: “Talk to me your returners who are coming back to your program after several years away!”

MS: “We have a few! The ones that I’m really excited about are obviously Jess Markle, TJ Martinez, and Stephen Freeman-Vigil. These are veterans that are really respected among the teams that they’ve played against, people that I had to do research on when I saw that they had signed up to try out. Just really knowledgeable players that are such a great presence to have at practices.”

“I think, at first, looking at the tryout list and everyone that was planning on being there, it was a little scary to see the difference in age range. I mean we have D’Adrian Avila, who is David Avila’s younger brother who just graduated high school two weekends ago. And we have people like TJ and Miguel, who have been playing for a very long time. It was a little jarring to think about how are we going to create practice schedules, how are we going to be able to cater to what everyone needs when there’s such a big difference in skill level and knowledge of the game, from playing 0 years to playing 5+.”

“The younger and newer players love learning from the veterans, and vice versa. I feel like there’s things for everyone to learn, regardless of how long you’ve been playing, regardless of your status as a veteran or as a new player. It’s been really great to see these different generations of quadball get together and work together.”

Tune into MLQ Replay every Tuesday at 8 pm ET on the MLQ Network.