Whipsnakes Fall 16-11 to Archers on Friday Night
By Adam Lamberti | Aug 19, 2023
The Whipsnakes fell 16-11 to the Archers on Friday night in Seattle, a score that was closer than the game indicated.
The top-seeded Archers, who earned a 1st-round bye with the win, took advantage of a bad Whipsnakes start, built a quick lead, and piled it on with their terrific offense.
“To be quite frank, we got our ass kicked tonight,” said LSM Michael Ehrhardt. “It wasn’t pretty. We battled back a little, but it wasn’t our best effort.”
The game was close early on, but two unforced Whipsnakes turnovers led to back-to-back Archers goals in the 1st quarter, one by Tre Leclaire and the other by Connor Fields that led to a 6-2 Archers lead after 12 minutes of play.
The game really broke open in the 2nd quarter, however. Any Whipsnakes momentum seemed to crumble after Archers goalie Brett Dobson made a save on a great look by Will Manny and hit a wide open Piper Bond who fed Fields for a dunk. The two-goal swing gave the Archers a 7-2 lead, which they built to 10-2 going into the half.
The Archers offense, propelled by Fields’ 6 points, shredded the Whipsnakes defense all game long while at the other end, the Whipsnakes offense shot an abysmal 10% in the 1st half.
But as Ehrhardt said, the Whipsnakes battled back in the 2nd half, including two goals by Ehrhardt.
While the comeback effort was too little too late, the Whipsnakes still had some good individual performances from the game.
Brendan Krebs had his 4th straight game with double digit saves. Petey LaSalla won 52% of faceoffs against fellow rookie Mike Sisselberger this time around compared to 22% in the first meeting against the Archers. Head Coach Jim Stagnitta also said he thought Connor Kirst was a bright spot for the team.
The other positive for the Whipsnakes as a whole is a lesson learned right before the playoffs.
“There’s nothing we can do about what happened tonight except learn from it,” Stagnitta said. “There’s an awful lot of opportunity to learn from what we did tonight and about how we're going to prepare going forward and how we're going to start games and how we're going to handle adversity.”
The red-hot Archers are clearly the best team in the PLL right now, winning 6 straight behind MVP frontrunner Tom Schreiber for a 8-1 record.
Let’s not forget the Whipsnakes were the #1 seed heading into the 2022 playoffs with a 9-1 record before losing to the Waterdogs in the semifinals, so anything can happen in the postseason.
They’ll look to close out the regular season on a high note as they face the Cannons in Salt Lake City at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night.
