Ryan Baker
The Madison Radicals are coming off of recording their second-lowest block total in a single season, only getting four against the Indianapolis AlleyCats this past weekend.
This upcoming weekend, the Minnesota Wind Chill travel to the ultimate frisbee capital of the world in Madison, and getting those blocks won’t be getting any easier. While they are seeing players such as Thomas Coolidge, Kai DeLorenzo and Pat Schriwise returning, they are still left without top defender Sterling Knoche.
Minnesota currently sits at 6-2 on the season and is coming off of a bye week. Previous to the bye week, the Wind Chill got slapped in the face by the Colorado Summit, losing 25-15. Surely, head coach Ben Feldman and his team will be looking to get back on track against a Radicals team that has lost four straight games.
Two of those losses came at the hands of Minnesota, the first one only a one-point difference and the second being a five-point difference. The last time the Wind Chill had traveled to Breese Stevens Field it was a game that came down to the final minutes. The inexperience of the Radicals came back to bite them in crunch time.
“We feel pretty good about our matchups against them now. I don't think we lost because we didn't generate enough blocks. I mean, blocks always help. I think we had a few too many breaks that we gave up against them and their defensive line efficiency was too high,” said head coach Tim DeByl.
On the other side, Minnesota is dealing with their own gaps in their lineup. Top players in Quinn Snider, Marco Dregni, Josh Klane and Paul Krenik all aren’t going to be suiting up on Friday night. This will open the gates for Madison to turn the tables and take advantage of some inexperience.
“I think the last game we played them, we really struggled with their pulls. We worked pretty hard on that in practice. So hopefully, we can manage to figure out how to contain their blade pulls. I think that's the starting point for us for this game against them,” said DeByl.
Dating back to 2021, the Radicals are 1-7 against the Wind Chill. However, there are some players who have had individual success against one of the top teams in the league in 2023. Rookie Anthony Gutowsky has scored eight times on Minnesota, and won’t have to worry about going up against Paul Krenik in this one.
Veteran Victor Luo has thrown for nearly 500 yards in the two previous matchups, meanwhile Joe Leibforth has amassed four blocks in both games with three of them coming in just one of them. Also, Coolidge has 33 passing attempts in both games but has yet to throw an incompletion.
“We're just trying to build some momentum for next year at this point. This team is young and has to learn how to win games, so if we get an opportunity to win one, that's what we want to do,” said DeByl.
This is the first game of a doubleheader weekend for the Radicals. They begin it by playing right in the comfort of Breese Stevens Field on Friday, July 7 at 7 p.m. CDT. They follow it up with traveling to Detroit for their first matchup with the Mechanix on the year for a 2 p.m. CDT start time on Saturday.
