Ryan Baker
Midway through the season for the Madison Radicals, nobody thought they would be at 1-5 and just a game above last place in the Central Division.
According to the power rankings created by Adam Ruffner, the Radicals are ranked 19th, sitting right behind the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds and right in front of the Houston Havoc. Despite being 1-5, Madison is only looking at -5 point differential.
The year started off on a bad note for head coach Tim DeByl’s team. Before the season even began, their top player in two-time all-star Kevin Pettit-Scantling went down with an ACL injury at one of their last practices before the season kicked off.
Not to mention, second-year player Kai Marcus, who showed incredible talent last year in the couple games he had played, is still sidelined with an injury that happened last year. Jack Nelson went down with a knee injury in the first game of the year against the Thunderbirds.
Other impact players such as Jake Rubin-Miller and Max Sample have yet to see the field in 2023. Meanwhile, Brian Hart has had an injury-riddled return year as he has only played in two games. Top defender Sterling Knoche has also dealt with injuries this season only playing in two games as well.
“We definitely wouldn't have picked to start out with this record, but the team's still really talented. If we can clean up some execution, especially in the third and fourth quarters, and get some of these guys back from injuries,” said Andrew Meshnick. “We feel like we got a chance to pick up a string of wins here down the stretch and try to get back in the playoff picture.”
Marcus, Nelson and Pettit-Scantling are all targeting mid-to-late-July returns which would give them, at-best, just a couple games of play. On paper, without injuries, Madison looks like one of the most talented rosters across the league, however it may be too late by the time the star-studded trio returns.
Madison had traveled to Pittsburgh for the season opener and saw their first heartbreak of the season when Max Sheppard reached over three Radical defenders to grab the buzzer-beating goal to take the win.
They saw a similar outcome after nearly a month hiatus between games when they traveled to Indianapolis to take on the AlleyCats. With two seconds remaining, Cameron Brock caught a huck to give the AlleyCats the lead and the win.
The Radicals then had their home opener at Breese Stevens Field spoiled by the Chicago Union. After an end of quarter mishap, the Union took advantage and took the win by two, giving Madison their first 0-3 start in program history.
Finally, the Radicals took home their first win of the season in a Thunderbirds rematch at Breese Stevens Field. A game where the Radicals look like they put everything together in a five-point win, giving them the tiebreaker in the season series.
The last two games were dropped against Minnesota, one home and one away. The away game was another last minute loss by one, and the second one was a much uglier performance where a fourth quarter meltdown cost them the game.
Despite their porous record, there are some things that the Radicals can be proud of this season. One being their young core. A young core that includes team leader in goals Anthony Gutowsky, Sam Stark, Henry Goldenberg and Joe Leibforth. Gutowsky, Stark and Leibforth are all rookies, while Goldenberg is in his third year on the team.
“We're still building. Obviously results aren't there but, take away some things before the season ends and kind of build towards a good end of the season. I think that'll be a key thing going into next year too,” said veteran Victor Luo.
Gutowsky is currently third among rookies in goals with 21, which is 14 more than the next leading scorer on the Radicals. “Gumby” tacked on six of those in his second game of the season in Indy. He is also leading the team in receiving yards, being the only player to eclipse 1000 yards so far this season with 1089.
“He's played well all year, and I talked to him after the [Minnesota] game and he's hard on himself, but he's a great player. He's going to be a good player for us for a long time,” said DeByl.
Stark has shown flashes with some perfect hucks downfield and is proving to be a sure-handed handler given that he has yet to throw an incompletion in his 25 attempts. Stark also sits at the second-best plus/minus on the team with 12 and has added three blocks to the stat sheet.
“I kind of came into the season and I just wanted to do my thing. Try and get a game or two and just overall improve as a player and do what I can do for the team. It’s a competitive game still even as frustrating as it is. It's still fun to come out. Every single home game has still been a blast,” said Stark.
Goldenberg only played in seven games last season, and through six games it looks like identical stats comparative to 2022. He leads the team in assists and is second in total yards and throwing yards. The throwaways have been a bit of an issue as he leads the team with 18 at the midway point of the season.
Leibforth took a bit to get going and hadn’t been seeing a ton of playing time until recently. He’s been a menace on the defensive side and looks to be the spark that Madison needs in attempting to replace the amount of blocks they’ve lost with Knoche and Pettit-Scantling sidelined. In the most recent game against Minnesota, Leibforth accumulated three blocks, all coming in clutch moments.
“I mean, at this point, it's win or go home. You got to make risks on defense, because that's how you get your blocks. You're not going to get a block by chasing someone around the field. You have to take those risks, make those switches and get into the space that they want to attack,” said Leibforth.
Veterans like Victor Luo, Ted Schewe, Kai DeLorenzo, Daniel Garlock and Andrew Meshnick have been some of the most consistent players on the Radicals. Luo leads the team in total yards and throwing yards. Schewe is third in total yards, meanwhile DeLorenzo sits at third on the team in assists and second in blocks.
Garlock has been a solid plug-and-play energy booster for the defensive line, and Meshnick has arguably been the heart of the Radical defense. He leads the team with eight blocks and two callahans, which is just the second time ever someone has caught multiple callahans in a single season.
As a unit, it doesn’t look the best for DeByl and company in the stat columns. The Radicals sit bottom five in the league in scores, completions, hucks, huck completion percentage and blocks. There’s only one category that they sit on the other end of the spectrum and that’s scores against as they’ve been scored on the fifth least across the league.
“We just aren't as good as we need to be. I mean we play really well on stretches and then we just absolutely fall apart. Our offense is really struggling right now,” said DeByl.
The rest of the categories, Madison is in the middle of the pack. There needs to be a complete switch of identity or they need to clean up the little things quickly for them to be able to come out on the other ends of these games.
It’s been unscripted hucks, rushing redzone opportunities, inexperience, breakdowns at the ends of quarters and not creating blocks on the defensive side. They may seem like smaller token issues, but when they add up, it collects as a 1-5 record.
The schedule the rest of the way is a bit of an easier path than the previous. This weekend they take on the AlleyCats at home, then they travel to Indy for their third matchup on the year. Following that are two doubleheaders.
The first being a Friday night home game on July 7 against the Minnesota Wind Chill, then they have to travel to a currently defeated Detroit for a day game on July 8. The second being a bit easier on the travel side with an away night game against the Chicago Union on July 21, then a home game to round out the season against Detroit the next night.
The Radicals need to get healthy or they need a major boost from some of their key guys. It starts Friday night at home vs the 2nd place Indianapolis AlleyCats.
