Before tonight’s meeting with the Archers and Atlas, there was a lot of attention surrounding this Archers offense. What type of offense would they be? Do they have too many stars? Will they live up to the hype? How will Connor Fields fit in?

In an 18-6 victory over Atlas Saturday night at Gillette Stadium, the Archers demonstrated a little preview of what’s to come for this team. 

It looked like it would be a back-and-forth game, but after the 2-point goal from Scott Ratliff, the Archers continued to lead for the rest of the game. 

Atlas goalie Jack Concannon only had one save in the first half, while the Archers shot 76.4%, which led to a 15-3 lead for the Archers at the half. 

Christian Mazzone had four points and was the team's leading scorer, but it was a real team effort tonight with goals coming from 10 different scorers. Two of those goals were 2-point bombs from Ratliff and Connor Fields. 

Fields said he didn’t think his first goal as an Archer would be a 2-pointer. 

“I think that was the first 2-point shot I took,” he said. “I don’t even take them in practice, to be honest, because I’m more of an eight-and-in kind of guy. I saw Marcus (Holman) in front, kind of with the screen on the goalie, and I was like, ‘Man, I’m going for it.”

John Crawley led the way for Atlas with three points. Two of those points came off of a 2-point goal when Drew Adams came into the net after Adam Ghitelman picked up a violation. 

Crawley, just one of few players who have been on the Atlas since the inaugural PLL season, said he feels a responsibility to take care of the adjustments they need to make before next weekend's game. 

While the Archer's offense shined, it was the defense that held the Atlas offense scoreless for 24 minutes, along with Ghitelman’s 17 saves, that secured a victory for the Archers. 

“(Our defense) did an outstanding job,” said Archer’s head coach Chris Bates. ”If you talk to our guys, except for Matt McMahon, they’re pretty quiet as a whole. Graeme and Warren just come in, and they do their job. I thought they did their job well tonight. Our shorties in terms of Moose (Mark McNeill) and Dom and Treezy (Latrell Harris) in his first game, I thought did well. It’s just good to get that group….Ratliff and Jackson Place also did a nice job at the top. Adam was our backbone there. He gave us energy.” 

The Archers gained a ton of momentum heading into next week's game against an 0-1 Chaos team. 

Atlas will need to bounce back against a tough and gritty Redwoods team who defeated the Cannons 12-11.