The Crease Dive's PLL Week 10 Preview Featuring Blaze Riorden
Well, folks, here we are. The final week of the inaugural PLL regular season is upon us, and the boys are heading to Albany this weekend to close it out. To get us ready for Albany week, we’ve got a big time legend alert with Blaze Riorden as our guest. Some of you may know Blaze as the current PLL league leader in saves. Some of you may know Blaze Riorden as an absolute stud lefty forward for the Philadelphia Wings in the NLL.
And some of you may remember Blaze as the scorer of one of the greatest goals in NCAA Lacrosse Tournament history when he went coast-to-coast against Cornell in the first round of the 2015 tournament with Albany.
Quick sidenote: Blaze gave us a little inside scoop on the thought process that went into the celly here after he scored this goal. A lot more went into it than just freaking out and running back to his crease. What a legend.
Regardless of how you know him, the fact remains the same that Blaze Riorden is an all-time beauty. So we had to get him on as the league heads up to Albany this weekend to play on the same field that Blaze dominated for 4 years. And things haven’t really changed at all considering he and the Chaos have been dominating the PLL so far this season. 7-2 on the year, they were the first team to clinch a playoff spot, and they’ll be playing in the 1 vs 2 game in the first round. And considering the Chaos team is loaded with former Danes (maybe you’ve heard of guys like Connor Fields and Miles Thompson before), they’ll probably keep this thing rolling and lock up that #1 seed heading into the playoffs.
As far as the rest of the episode goes–we recap everything you might have missed in week 9, segments include Greaser of the Week and Man Up/Man Down of the Week, and finally we wrap things up with our week 10 preview.
For the Android freaks out there, you can listen to this week’s episode right here on SoundCloud:
PLL Week 10 Preview // Albany
Real quick reminder here for those of you who don’t know, the PLL Playoff format is completely different than anything else in sports right now. The top two seeds play against each other in the first round. The winner of that game then gets a bye to the championship, while the loser of that game goes on to play the winner of the 3 vs 4 game in the semifinals. Loser of 3 vs 4 gets sent down to the losers tournament where 5 vs 6 will be playing for the 1st overall pick in next year’s draft.
The top 2 spots are already locked up with the Chaos and Whipsnakes right now. The last place spot is already locked up with the Chrome sitting at 2-7. So right now there are 3 teams fighting for the final 2 playoff spots. We’ve got the Archers, Atlas and Redwoods all at 4-5 on the year. None of them play against each other this weekend so we could see them all end up 5-5 or we could see them all end up 4-6. The score differential is really the difference maker right now. The Archers are +3 on the year so as long as they don’t get their doors blown off this weekend, they’ll most likely end up in the playoffs. The Atlas are -10 on the year, which isn’t great, but it’s still better than the Redwoods who are at -13 after getting shit pumped by the Whipsnakes last week. But yeah, two of these teams will be playing for a chance to get the loser of Chaos vs Whipsnakes in the semifinals, and the other team will be playing for a chance to get the 1st pick in 2020. Decent amount on the line here this weekend.
Chaos vs Atlas // Saturday, 8pm // NBC Sports Gold
Blaze Riorden, Connor Fields, Miles Thompson, Kyle McClancey and Troy Reh are all celebrating homecoming here this weekend as Albany alums. I feel like Albany players in general already have a chip on their shoulder since Albany isn’t necessarily considered a blue blood program in college lacrosse. So not only do these guys want to put on a show for the hometown crowd that supported them for 4 years of their lives, but they also want to show that Albany can develop some of the greatest lacrosse players in the world. Unfortunately Lyle Thompson is still playing in the MLL but as of right now, you have to put Connor Fields into that conversation. He has been making defenders look silly all season long and he’s only getting more ridiculous out there week after week.
I feel bad because the Atlas could really use another win here and you figure a team that already has a top 2 seed locked up would maybe take it easy this week. But not the Chaos and especially not when they’re playing in Albany. Saturday night under the lights? There’s not a single team out there that walks away from that game with a win.
Jordie’s Pick: Chaos
Redwoods vs Chrome // Sunday, 1:30pm // NBC Sports Gold
One of the scariest things in the world is a man who has nothing left to lose. And that’s pretty much what the Chrome are right now. They’re already out of it. They’ve already secured last place in the league. So what else do they really have to play for this weekend aside from spoiling someone else’s season?
Obviously the Redwoods are going to be a little embarrassed after getting shelled last week and they’ll want to come out strong to start this game on Sunday. But there’s so much on the line for them. Not only do they have to win, but depending on how Saturday night goes they may have to win big. All the Chrome needs to worry about is just fucking that up for the Redwoods. They can get all sorts of reckless out there because at the end of the day, a win or loss doesn’t make a difference to them. So you might as well just ruin somebody else’s day while you still can. Which makes them terrifyingly dangerous this weekend.
Jordie’s Pick: Chrome
Archers vs Whipsnakes // Sunday, 4:30pm // NBCSN
I gotta be honest–I don’t have the slightest clue about how this one is going to play out. Really it comes down to how the other two games go. I mean if the Atlas and the Redwoods both lose their games, this game doesn’t matter at all. Both the Whipsnakes and the Archers will already be in the playoffs. Actually, if just one of those teams loses then I’m pretty sure the Archers will already have a spot clinched. Now if the Atlas and the Redwoods both win? Well that puts a ton of pressure the Archers to pull out the dub here.
The thing that would worry me is that the Whipsnakes have lost 2 out of their last 3 games. But it looks like they got those losses out of their system and they’re back to shit pumping teams again. Did they waste all of their goals last week? Maybe so. But do I think this is a team that would lose 3 out of 4 heading into the playoffs? Unlikely.
So if one of the other bubble teams end up losing on Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, I’ll take the Whipsnakes closing out the regular season with a win. But if it becomes a “win and you’re in, lose and go home” type of scenario for the Archers then I think they have the studs to pull that one off. So yeah. There’s my big prediction. Archers are in no matter what, I’m just undecided on how it goes down.
Now go out there and have yourselves a weekend, folks. I love you all. Even the haters.
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