Players to Watch: Week Five
Week four of MLQ brings you our first weekend of games in every division. Grab your phone, your iPad, and your TV screen. You won’t want to miss any of the action or these seven athletes.
The Series of the Week carries huge MLQ Championship implications this weekend in the North Division, where the Toronto Raiders and the Detroit Innovators will square off with both teams looking to gain the inside track for second place after the Minneapolis Monarchs got swept by the Chicago Prowl last weekend. Watch for second-year utility Christos Kaldis to be the x-factor for the Raiders, who will be competing on the road. Kaldis recorded five goals, four assists, and four stops against the Cleveland Riff, matching his season totals from 2023, and he added two flag runner catches. He was a Swiss army knife of a player, and Toronto will need him to show up in big moments again to have a chance against a talented Detroit squad.
The Detroit Innovators have never beaten the Toronto Raiders, with the Raiders sweeping both previous meetings, including a 2022 MLQ North Division Championship series that determined the final qualification spot for the Benepe Cup. Chaser Gwen Pratt is one of the players who will remember the bitter taste from that series and has since become a central part of the Innovators resurgence. But they had a relatively quiet first series of the season against the Chicago Prowl, with a number of new ballhandlers still figuring out ways to use the weapons at their disposal. After a couple additional weeks of developing chemistry in practice, Pratt will need to have a large role against Toronto for Detroit to pull off the sweep.
Chaser Mel Kite returns for the Austin Outlaws after their shocking series loss to the League City Legends last weekend, and it’s hard to think of a more perfect player to help to steady the ship. Kite brings energy, hard work, and confidence on the pitch, and she strengthens their depth alongside chasers Jenna Adams-Tracy and Ella Jordan, who logged heavy minutes in Huntsville, Texas. She can make game-winning plays out of nothing, like she did to seal the series against the Washington Admirals in the semifinals at MLQ Championship last year, and she will encourage the kind of ball movement and off-ball cutting that was sorely missing for the Outlaws offense last weekend.
Beater Chanun Ong makes his debut for the Kansas City Stampede this weekend, after missing their opening series against the San Antonio Soldados, where beater Daniel Williams helped to steal game one by inspiring a scintillating 40-0 run to take the match. Ong, who won a US Quadball club national championship with Boom Train in April, has similar capabilities. He is one of the fastest beaters in the sport. He is unrelenting in the pressure he applies, and he competes with an unusual intensity. In order for the Stampede to emerge with two series wins, Ong will need to perform well against both experienced veterans like beaters Josh Mansfield and Alex Pucciarelli and USNTDA contemporaries like Kyzer Polzin and Kayse Bevers.
The margins could be small in the most anticipated South Division SuperSeries ever, and while the New Orleans Curse remain the underdog against both of their opponents, any combination of outcomes is possible. To keep pace with the Austin Outlaws, who will be looking to avenge their losses last weekend, and the Kansas City Stampede, who will be hungry to get their first wins of the season, New Orleans will need more scoring output from chaser Charlton Tramel. The Curse offense was unusually stagnant in the half court against the Legends, and Tramel could have been more involved. He has been a key reason why New Orleans has been able to break down half-court defenses in the past with his ability to beat opposing chasers 1-on-1 on the wing and finish through contact at the hoops.
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