Ryan Baker
Part two of the Border Battle is back! The Madison Radicals and Minnesota Wind Chill will play each other Saturday night at Sea Foam Stadium in St. Paul, MN.
This is a preview of the first round of the playoffs as the Radicals will try to turn around recent history against the Wind Chill. The Radicals have struggled against the Wind Chill in recent years, even more so when having to go to Sea Foam Stadium. It’s been a location that has stumped them continuously, but this has a bit of different circumstances.
Right now, Madison is within one game of the Wind Chill for the second seed in the division. Granted, the Radicals would have to beat them by eight or more to take control of the tiebreaker, considering their loss to them a few weeks ago. However, Minnesota has a tough matchup with Salt Lake next week, and Madison would have to take down the undefeated Union, but crazier things have happened.
The first step is to finally beat Minnesota in their home stadium, and the Wind Chill are coming off a rough loss against the Union. Meanwhile, the Radicals are coming off a game against Indianapolis where they finally gave up a big run and turned things around.
As for the details in this matchup, Madison will be shifting things around on their O-line. The big playmakers of Ted Schewe, Kai Marcus, and Jack Nelson will not be traveling with the team for this one. That leaves players like Kainoa Chun-Moy and Anthony Gutowsky to pick up the slack. This will be Chun-Moy’s first game in the challenging stadium.
“I’ve heard that historically, it doesn’t go well at Sea Foam. As a team, we’ve worked hard to push each other at practice, and hopefully that work will show up in the big moments. This is an opportunity to challenge ourselves and measure up against the reigning champs. It’s a game that holds a ton of weight as far as confidence for the rest of the season and the opportunity to host a home playoff game. We are ready for the spotlight and excited for the challenge,” said Chun-Moy.
We will also get to see Eric Sjostrom have his first battle test against the likes of either Chicago or Minnesota. He has been playing well, but he has yet to face a high-caliber team. Additionally, we get to see what Max Sample can do after having a few games under his belt after coming back from injury.
“It’ll definitely hurt not to have Kai [Marcus], Ted [Schewe], and Sunny [Jack Nelson], but we’re 100% confident and have full trust in the squad that we’re bringing to Minnesota. We will play our game, and if that happens, we will be proud of the result,” said Chun-Moy.
Something that Madison has on the Wind Chill is their consistency with their roster. Madison has had nearly the same roster game in and game out, while the Wind Chill seems to have a different group of 20 guys each week.
Despite that, Madison is going to have to scheme something different against the reigning champs to be able to win. To put it simply, what they have been doing in recent years has not worked. If Madison wants to win, they need to throw a wrench in their own game plan.
“We have done a significant amount of conditioning since our last loss. We have worked on some defensive sets to focus on containing their guys specifically, and offensively, we have to start locked in,” said Gutowsky.
Something to watch out for in terms of Gutowsky is his own franchise record being broken. He is at 50 and leads the league. Last year he had 54. In four of his seven career games against Minnesota, he has put up at least five goals.
With that in mind, Minnesota will surely be eyeing Madison’s top producer, so that leaves the rest of the O-line needing to step up. If Madison wants a chance at winning this game, we will need to see big performances from Gabe Vordick, Kelsen Alexander, and Kai DeLorenzo.
To tune in to the game this Saturday at 6 p.m. CT, click here!
