The California Redwoods came away from their primetime matchup against the defending Premier Lacrosse League champion Utah Archers with a devastating loss.
Yes, they lost the game, 12-11, but they didn’t seem too down about the result on the scoreboard; in the postgame press conference, head coach Anthony Kelly said he liked where his team was at, adding: “It’s good to get a couple losses out of the way and figure out who you are and how you respond.”
The more pertinent deficit coming out of that game was a season-ending injury to short-stick defensive midfielder Chris Merle.
At the 7:58 mark of the second quarter, Merle was covering Utah rookie Sam King, who was dodging down the righty wing alley, when he went down with a non-contact injury. Merle confirmed on Instagram on Monday that he tore his ACL, will require surgery and is out for the remainder of the season. The Redwoods placed him on injured reserve.
After last Friday’s loss, Kelly said losing Merle had a definitive impact on the game.
“I think losing a guy like Merle, he’s a vocal leader. He’s a captain,” he said. “I think that definitely was weighing on some guys, knowing that he’s probably not coming back this year. That definitely has an impact, and then, you’re short a runner. The reality is you have 19 guys. You drop one. You have to shuffle some things around. [Sam] English is now running out the back door.”
The Redwoods will certainly miss Merle in the locker room.
On the Outside the Box podcast, rookie midfielder Josh Balcarcel said Merle was the player in charge of the locker room music, helping set up good vibes before games. Defensive coordinator Chris Collins said Merle was not someone who could be replaced; he said he was someone who was an eloquent speaker, someone who was thoughtful in how he delivered messages to his teammates, and someone he leaned on heavily. Collins added that when the scouting report for the upcoming game comes out, it lately has come with a “thought of the day,” which has been a poem or short story or article that Merle found and shared with the team.
Fellow captain and SSDM Brian Tevlin shared with his teammates in the locker room after the game how important Merle is.
“He pushes me every day,” Tevlin said about Merle. “Every day I don’t have it, Merle gets me right.”
In addition to his leadership, Merle’s injury leaves behind a big hole to fill on the field. Collins said Merle is a physical defender who’s comfortable making contact, is a good communicator, has a high lacrosse IQ and is able to push the ball in transition and make plays on offense.
Chris Merle is coming in HOT 🔥 pic.twitter.com/wOKaL73C3F
— California Redwoods (@PLLRedwoods) June 7, 2025
In 2024, Merle finished the season with 14 caused turnovers, which was fourth in the entire league and the most among short-stick defenders. This season, Collins said Merle was playing at an All-Star level (he still planned to use his All-Star Game ballot to vote for him).
“The game has really slowed down for him, and he’s taking a massive step forward in performance … being super physical and embracing that lockdown corner type of mentality that we ask out of our shorties,” Collins said. “Not to mention, he’s a beast in transition, too. With our short sticks, we want them to play bump and run, but we ask them to punt return the ball out at times, and we also ask them to play pick-six, going from defense to offense and creating scoring opportunities. He’s done that, and that’s a whole ‘nother layer to his game that we’re going to have to find a way to manufacture now.”
Collins said there are a number of plans in place to try to replicate the success Merle was having on the field. He was highly complimentary of the team’s other SSDMs, Tevlin and rookie Carter Rice (“He’s gonna be a massive piece for us going forward,” Collins said about Rice), but they will need other players to step up around them. Marquez White, the fourth player on the roster at the position, is still on the physically unable to perform list and not yet cleared.
Rookie midfielders Andrew McAdorey and English will play more minutes and be asked to stay out on defense more. Collins cited both of their abilities to “run all day long” as well as their versatility on offense, faceoff wings and defense. Collins and Kelly were both impressed with English’s debut against the Archers, especially when they considered he wasn’t able to participate in training camp and had only one practice with the team.
“He’s been a vocal guy. He’s doing exactly what he needs to do,” Kelly said. “I think he’s going to be outstanding as we move forward.”
To match Merle’s physicality, the team is hoping to activate defender Cole Kastner off the PUP list soon. Collins said Kastner was having a “phenomenal” camp before he had some soft tissue concerns.
“Having his athleticism and his presence in the lineup,” Collins said, “we’re gonna look forward to that.”
The hole left by Merle’s absence also could open an opportunity for Nakeie Montgomery to step up. The fourth-year player out of Duke, who was not on the 19-man roster in any of the team’s first three games, had played in 28 out of 30 games over the past three seasons and done so as a two-way midfielder and SSDM.
An incredible athlete – Montgomery also played for the Duke football team and ran a 4.46 40-yard dash at the Duke football pro day (one hundredth of a second faster than Ezekiel Elliot ran at the NFL Combine in 2015) – Collins said Montgomery’s years of experience in the PLL could also be beneficial to the Redwoods.
“Nakeie’s had a good run in this league,” he said. “He is a guy who’s ready. He’s a guy that I know we can lean on and rely on. He’s a guy whose name comes up all the time. He’s someone who has proven that he can be in this league and be in the mix. He said it, too. When his number’s called, he’ll be ready.”
Merle’s injury is a big loss for California, but Collins said the team was fortunate to at least have the bye this week to have extra time to figure out how to address the loss before the team’s Homecoming Weekend in San Diego.
Collins is confident the Redwoods will rally behind Merle and thrive under a “next man up” philosophy.
“It’s been a group that I love going to work with every day, and they know that they’re going to get 110% of me each and every time we’re out there,” he said. “The great part is I get that back from them each and every time.”
“We have a championship-caliber group here,” he added, “but we are not done. We have so much work to do.”
