The final game of the PLL season is here, the Championship is set, and the teams are ready to go! In a matchup that no one predicted at the beginning of the season, the PLL Championship features the Chaos and the Waterdogs. It’s a battle of the Andys, Chaos head coach Andy Towers will be looking for his team to repeat as champions on Sunday, while the other Andy, Andy Copelan will try and have his Waterdogs be the first team outside of the original six to win a championship. Last weekend I picked both the Chaos and the Waterdogs to advance, something I was very pleased to see happen, but for a while it looked like we would be seeing another repeat of Chaos Whips. Instead, the streets got some new blood in the championship something I think both the PLL fans and the PLL as a league needed desperately.
Last Sunday’s games were intense and close all the way to the end. The Chaos beat the Archers 9-7. While the Waterdogs got a comeback victory over the Whips, winning the game 11-10. The Chaos game was just filled with outrageous goals, it was a contest full of Sportscenter Top 10 plays. I think for the first five or six Chaos goals I just shook my head in disbelief at the high level of skill and difficulty of their shots. It was just getting ridiculous at one point, those ‘Aos Boys are a different breed of ballers. And I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence as a writer if I didn’t mention the man in cage for the Chaos, Blaze Riorden. I thought this season he deserved the Goalie of the Year Award, but that’s a story for another time. What I do know is that Blaze is playing at an unbelievably high level in cage, he’s making all the saves he should and some of the ones he shouldn’t. Including the final save of the game, where the ball bounced up into his shorts, the stats don’t say how the save is made, just that one is made, and Blaze made that one.
If the Chaos Archers game was wild, then I don’t know what word you would use to describe the Waterdogs Whipsnakes game. It was a close game all the way to the end, and the Waterdogs pulled out the win in the final minutes, scoring the last three goals of the game. Dillon Ward played very well in cage with 17 saves and a 63 save percentage, his performance was a major catalyst for the Waterdogs win. Kieran McArdle and Michael Sowers continued to produce for the DAWGS with each man scoring 4 points and that’s with Sowers getting banged up in the game.
The championship matchup is set to be full of excellent offense, great goalie play, and full speed action all over the field. There are some important players listed as questionable for both teams, but I imagine at this point in the season unless a limb is falling off all those men will be suited up and ready to play. For the Chaos: Kyle Jackson, Jarrod Neumann, Dhane Smith, and Jack Rowlett while Michael Sowers, Kieran McArdle for the Waterdogs are listed as questionable and Mikie Schlosser is out. On a positive note, for the Waterdogs the LETHAL shooter Ryan Brown appears to be healthy, he may replace Schlosser for the DAWGS' gameday squad.
In a game that’s sure to have fireworks I believe it will come down to which defensive unit can get a stop late in the game. And at the heart of those defenses are the goalies. If you’re asking which goalie, you would rather have in cage, Blaze Riorden or Dillon Ward, neither answer is wrong to that question. Ironically these two were teams in the 2020 bubble for the Chaos, so Andy Towers at one point had two of the top three goalies in the world on his roster. Blaze is the 3x Goalie of the year and last season’s PLL MVP. While Dillon Ward has won the Goaltender of the Year award and an NLL Finals MVP. For his home country of Canada, Dillon Ward was the 2014 Outstanding Goalie, part of the ALL-World Team and won MVP of the tournament, becoming the first goalie to ever win that award. So, if you were willing to plan your flag and die on the hill that says these are the two best goalies in the world, I’m right there with you.
And to the question everyone is wondering who I believe will walk off the field victorious in Philadelphia, my answer… the Chaos. The combination of Dhane Smith and Josh Byrne will prove too much to handle for the Waterdogs defense and not even Dillon Ward’s heroics will be able to save them from the vicious Canadian Duo. The Chaos repeat as PLL Champions in 2022, you heard it here first folks. Sunday will bring some FANTASTIC lacrosse, sit back, and enjoy ladies and gents.
Comments