May 9, 2025
By Alex Rubin
Watch live and free on YouTube starting at 9:00 PM/ET
Last week, the Oakland Spiders traveled north to Seattle and beat the Cascades in a 22-21 thriller that included 14 fourth quarter goals. This week, they face off again in Oakland. This game will be pivotal as playoff races start to take shape. Last season both Oakland and Seattle played in the postseason, with the Cascades representing the West Division at Championship Weekend. This year, with strong squads in Colorado and Salt Lake also vying for just three spots, any game between that quartet has added importance.
Last week’s game offers a nice preview for this week’s showcase matchup. Oakland’s patient offense and stifling defense built the Spiders a five goal lead by the end of the third quarter. It was clear that Oakland was playing their third game of the season while the Cascades were taking the field for the first time in several months. Seattle came alive in the fourth quarter, scoring nine goals including the game tying break with 37 seconds left.
Oakland managed to burn most of the rest of the clock as they calmly marched the disc upfield and into the end zone to continue their undefeated season and set Seattle behind the pace in the playoff race.
Compared to last week, each team will need to adjust to the replacement of a key player. Conor Belfield, who shined in his Cascades debut last week with three assists, two goals, and a block, and Robin Vickers Batzdorf, a key defender for the Spiders, are not on this week’s active rosters.
The teams’ adjustments go beyond personnel, and will blend into updated strategies. Seattle completed all ten of their huck attempts last week, so Oakland’s deep defense is something they need to improve this week. This continues a trend for Seattle–last season they threw the second-fewest huck turnovers per game of any team in the league and had the highest huck completion percentage at 69 percent. Zeppelin Raunig brought in ten goals last week as the Cascade’s primary deep receiver. Nobody else on the team had more than two, so Oakland will certainly have his name bolded on the game plan. In addition to some schematic adjustments, the venue is sure to play a factor as well. Last week’s game was in Seattle, but this week the swirling winds of Fremont High School, a famously challenging place to play, should also act as an eighth defender to deter huck looks. Oakland will also need to find matchups for Seattle’s Garrett Martin and Aaron Wolf, who each threw five assists.
On offense, the Spiders’ turnovers down the stretch that allowed Seattle to come back were largely high stall resets. While Oakland was able to maintain their composure and score the game winning goal late, a better executed offensive set would not have allowed Seattle to come back at all. Adam Rees had the first multi-turn game of his young career, while Saul Wildavsky and Matthew Crawford were the only members of the Spiders offense who went without a turnover. It is unreasonable to expect a whole offense to survive a game without any turnovers, but when a game ends with a one-goal margin, any individual throwaway or drop could be the one that makes a difference and the Spiders will want to minimize mistakes moving forward.
The Spiders and Cascades are set to face each other one more time after this game in the regular season, and they certainly could face off in the playoffs as well. With Oakland already holding a one game series lead, the Spiders would also have a key tiebreaker looking ahead to playoff scenarios with a second in-series win. Even though it is just Week 3, this game could have massive playoff implications.
