Warriors Earn 10th Win with Commanding Performance Against Swarm, 14-7
Interviews with Warriors General Manager and Head Coach Curt Malawsky and Swarm Head Coach Ed Comeau
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
The Georgia Swarm (8-5) struck first, but the Vancouver Warriors (10-4) wrested control of the game back and never let up at Gas South Arena, winning 14-7 on Saturday night in Duluth, GA. The visiting team jumped out to a 7-1 lead, steadily pouring on the pressure out both doors and using their physicality to keep the Swarm off balance all game long.
Vancouver becomes the first NLL team this season to chase NLL MVP frontrunner Brett Dobson from the pipes (not counting the referees in Buffalo inappropriately having Dobson serve his major penalty in the season opener) and have snapped the Swarm’s streak of 11 consecutive games allowing just single digit goals against. Keegan Bal’s hat trick to open up the second half broke the streak, and his fourth of the game and Reece Callies’s shorthanded marker sent Dobson to the bench for the remainder of the contest.
The Warriors were able to find the middle of the floor at will, overwhelming Dobson with chances on the doorstep, a Swarm defender a half-step behind the Warriors forwards. Meanwhile, the Swarm offense stayed perimeter for most of the night, boxed out by the bruising physicality of the Warriors defensive corps. Georgia had plenty of power play opportunities but only capitalized on one of their six power plays, a Lyle Thompson hammer in the second quarter. Vancouver scored two shorthanded markers and went .500 on the power play.
Coming back from halftime up 9-3, Vancouver continued picking apart Georgia, scoring four more goals in the first half of the third quarter for the largest lead of the night, 13-3. From there, they were content to frustrate the Swarm offense and kill as much clock on offensive sets. The Swarm scored four of the last five goals in the contest, way too little too late as the visiting club commanded a 14-7 victory.
Both coaches were .500 on the night for coaches challenges, all four within the fourth quarter. Their initial challenges overturned goal calls, Swarm Head Coach Ed Comeau’s wiping out Ryan Sheridan’s aerial around-the-world attempt, and Warriors General Manager and Head Coach Curt Malawsky’s challenge nailing Swarm rookie Nolan Byrne for toeing the crease ahead of a wraparound goal.
Bal’s 9 PTS (4G, 5A) and Curtis Dickson’s 7 PTS (3G, 4A) led the charge for the Warriors offense by committee. Christian Del Bianco played until there were 4:11 min. left in the contest, making 45 saves on the way to a 6.45 GAA and .882 Sv%.
Jordan MacIntosh’s 3 PTS (1G, 2A) led the team in scoring, alongside Shayne Jackson’s three assists; the Swarm captain had a monster night all over the floor and on special teams, finishing with 6 loose balls and 4 caused turnovers, both of which might be undercounts. Dobson spent 32:13 min. in cage, finishing the night with a 22.35 GAA and .636 Sv%, and Devlin Shanahan was in front of the net for the remaining 27:47 min. He posted a 4.32 GAA and .833 Sv%.
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
Warriors Head Coach Curt Malawsky
What’s the immediate thought after a complete game like that?
Yeah, that was our most complete game. Someone asked me — actually, our video guy, Grant Coghill — asked me what our most complete game of the season was, and I thought outside of those six minutes in the Buffalo game, that was our closest to a complete game. It started well, finished well, and just struggled a little bit in between, but I think tonight, we started really well. It's tough to not to take a foot off the gas, and I thought we still did it—we lost the fourth quarter 2-1, but that's just absolutely splitting hairs. We weren't going to the net as much as we would have liked to, just based on the score, and that was by design, but I think overall, the guys did a great job. They competed super hard. You know, we had good matchups on their guys, which is a testament to our guys. They shut down some of their better guys. They made it tough to get to the middle, and then when they do get shots under pressure, then Christian gets in front of them. So I think overall, it was an excellent team effort.
Your defense did an excellent job boxing out the middle of all night long. Conversely, your offense had their way getting to the middle. I don't think I've seen you guys cut that effectively for an entire game this season. Was that sort of the scout when you guys were watching the Swarm defense that's young and athletic and likes to press, just taking advantage of those mistakes?
Yeah, you know what? I'm sure Eddie, you know, phenomenal coach, man, a good friend of mine, I'm sure he's going to say that they got too spread a little bit off-ball at times, but if we can entice them out of the middle of the floor and try to throw some different stuff at them to try to get ourselves in the middle floor, and obviously, our players are very willing to go to the dirty areas, which is great. You know, there's one thing about being a good player in the NLL and being perimeter and another thing about being a great inside and outside threat, so we’ve got a lot of guys that aren't scared to go up to the middle and that'll still kill you from the outside if you sit in and pack it. So, I think that was our willingness and the discipline of our guys to want to get to the middle and the willingness to take a beating to score goals.
That's still a very good team. We just got inside and hit our shots. We were on top of Dobber a few times one-on-one, and he made some ones early, but we just stuck with the process, and the guys just kept on battling and competing. I think overall it was a good offensive effort. Everyone contributed. It's not just the guys in the score sheet that score the goals and get the assists, but you look at Ryan Sheridan moving bodies, like (Adam) Charalambides didn't put one in the net, but man, he logs miles and gets loose balls and creates a ton of space for the other guys. So, it truly is offense by committee. Everyone kind of knows their job, and it's not every same guy on it every night. So, we kind of share it around, which is nice.
You go in halftime up 9-3. Is the message to the team in the locker room, “Don't really change too much,” just kind of keep the foot on the throat?
We had five key points that we wanted to focus on. There wasn't a lot that we had to change. I think they got a seal shot, long gap, and they scored on that, and just a couple of little things I won't mention on tape here, but that we wanted to adjust, and then a couple of things on offense, too, that we wanted to take care of, but there wasn't many. It was like 20% of it, and I just think, you know, there were five keys that made a difference in the second half, and we just wanted to focus on those, and we just kind of leaned on them, and they made a difference.
Good night at the draw. Not only did MaxAdler perform well popping it back to his left side over and over again, you guys capitalize on those wins, having three goals on that first shift after the draw. How huge is that for capitalizing and dictating the pace in a game like tonight?
Yeah, what do they say about possession? It’s 9/10ths of the law? It's 9/10ths for lacrosse. You got the ball in your stick, the other team can't score, and it's momentum killers. Like, if they get one, and we possess the ball, pull it out, and they can't score — you come out of the half and you ask like, what is the big thing of the half, if we got the ball, then we kind of just take all that energy away from them, and they can't spend that adrenaline they want to spend early in the half to get back in the game. So, we could say we possessed them to death, and I think that was a big part of it tonight. Our line work was excellent. They had tried all different schemes. I've been there before. It's tough without a true draw guy in the National Lacrosse League.
Ryan Dilks has to be frontrunner for Defensive Player of the Year, especially after a game like tonight, right (he finished the night with a shorthanded goal, 8 loose balls, 3 caused turnovers — Thompson didn’t score when Dilks was on the floor)?
Yeah, he got the game ball tonight. You know, he had a phenomenal goal, and he's just a — you ask about our short man, or Hales asked about our short man, and he's a huge part of it. He's in lanes. He's got just an adaptability of himself to be able to knock balls down and just kind of see what the offensive guy's going to do before he's actually ready to do it. He's so deceptive. He plays a little bit of cat and mouse up top, too, and he just had a phenomenal game. It's a tough check. Lyle plays you for 60 from the start to the finish, and he's a world class lacrosse player who doesn't stop. He can hit you from the outside, he can get to the middle of the floor, he's got amazing feet. It was a tough matchup for Dilksy, but man, he played really well tonight, held him to a couple of goals.
Ottawa's up next week for you guys. I know, obviously, you're gonna have to watch the game that they're playing right now against Calgary. I think they're down 7-2 last I looked. Regardless of whatever happens tonight, that still a team that's won four straight before tonight. How do you build off of this one and prep for them as you return home?
Yeah, it's the X mentality for us. We'll learn from this, we pound the video, and we'll review this video. Maybe we won't spend as much time as we normally do if we lose a game. I just move forward and then just prepare for—they won a massive game in Colorado, and that's a tough building to win in, so we'll spend some time watching what they did real well, and however the Calgary game turns out, we'll review that, too. Again, they got one of the top three best players in the world in Jeff Teat, so, we're going to have a work cutout for us. And if the goalie didn't have a great night based on what you said, then, I know Higgy (Zach Higgins), he'll bounce back. So, it's going to be a real tough game, but we’ve got to start winning games at home for our fans. It's a big part of it, and we’ve got to change a couple things when we get there, but that will be for me to do a bit of a deep dive on it, figure out where we're at.
Photo Credit: Kyle Hess/Georgia Swarm
Swarm Head Coach Ed Comeau
Immediate thought after that loss, the second one in a row.
We weren't good. I thought there's been nights where we haven't been good on offense, but our defense was really good. I thought every facet of our game tonight was not good. Out offense was not great, loose balls were not great, our power play was not good, our defense was not good. I thought Dobber kind of got dealt a poor hand. The stats will show that they scored a bunch of goals on him, but if you look at the quality of those goals, I mean, they were all basically—there were two outside shots. Every other goal was pretty much on the doorstep, and as a defense, if you're giving up goals, shots like that to other teams that are good teams, they're going to score goals. So pretty disappointing. Credit to them, they’re a good team. They obviously played with intensity that we just didn't have, and that, I think, is the other point. We have to bring much more energy and intensity than what we had tonight.
You already kind of touched on it, but that's the best I've seen them at getting inside of the middle. Was there something with this young defensive system that you’ve got that they were just picking apart and taking advantage of that allowed them to keep getting inside at will?
We'll look back and see it. I think it was just more of an issue of we just didn't execute. We talked about you try to dictate a little bit and make the offense react to what you do, and all night long, we were having a react to what they were doing, and that's not how we want to play. So yeah, they did a good job. They set a lot of good picks, and I thought they were physical. They were probably more physical, like in both ends of the floor, than we were. We were pretty soft in both ends. It's a tough game. We have to be more physical defensively, and we have to be much more physical in the offensive zone like they were on our D guys.
I think it's fair to say that Byrne’s been the most productive forward you've had over the last couple of games. He's really elevated his game lately. What have you seen from him?
I think he plays with, he's a real hard matchup, like defensively, and I think he's able to use his size and get to the net, it seems like almost at will. We want him getting over the top. We want to get him good shooting lanes. So, I think those are good things, and I think he's obviously very dangerous behind the net. We’ve got to get him some smaller shoes, I think.
I know it was in a losing effort, but Jordan McIntosh was absolutely insane tonight. He's got to be the frontrunner for Transition Player of the Year after that, right?
Yeah, he's just like, honestly — that's another night he tried to will our team to win. He plays so hard, plays so many minutes, does so much for us. Believe me, I think when we have a game like that and we lose, that's a guy everyone feels like we let him down, too, because he just goes out and plays so hard every game. He's been good and a great leader, and obviously, there's lots of talk after the game, and we’ve got to regroup, and we've got a short week and get ourselves back to where we need to be.
Lack of production, even strength, and then on the power play, despite all the chances that you guys had, this isn't new for the offense. What needs to change moving forward? What's not working?
Honestly, we'll take a look at it, again, but a part of it is just we’ve got to get inside on teams. Again, look at their—if you heat mapped their shots versus our shots, you'd see a huge difference. Goalies are good in this league. If you settle for outside shots, that's what the other teams want to give you. So, we've got to find ways to get inside, find ways to play with more speed. I thought we played very slow tonight on offense, and our power play, short of declining penalties, everything's on the table on that, because one for six I think we were, that's not going to get it done. We’ve got to find a way to get some opportunities. That's the No. 1 man short in the league, but there were some power plays I'm not even sure we got a shot through to the goal. So, we've got to find a way to be better, and we're going to look at everything on that.
Yeah, Jeff Cornwall and Dilks were really good on the PK tonight. The final one for you, you’ve got Halifax up next. They're coming off of that tough loss to Toronto. Short turnaround for you. Is that a bit of a blessing that you have a bit less time to kind of wash away this one?
Yeah, I mean — the Philly game was tough cause we lost, and then we were on an off week, so you sit on that for two weeks. I think everyone's happy to get back at it, whether it's Friday, Saturday, it doesn't really matter for us. We just need to kind of regroup and get ourselves focused on how Swarm lacrosse is and get back to doing that.
