On a windy and cold night, the Indianapolis AlleyCats (3-1, 3-1 Midwest Division) came away with a victory over Chicago Wildfire, 25-21. The AlleyCats had positive production on both offense and defense.
Head coach Eric Leonard said “I’m proud of the team and we played extremely hard against Chicago.”
“Our tight defensive pressure forced some Chicago miscues, and we were able to take advantage in the first half to build a solid lead,” Leonard said. “We did struggle in the second half to generate blocks, so we definitely still have some work to do on the defensive side of the disc.”
On defense, the AlleyCats had 11 Ds compared to Wildfire’s 8 Ds. Leonard said he’ll remember John Jones layout block.
“It looked like his man was certainly going to score,” Leonard said. “But John’s diving effort secured the block for us.”
On the offensive side, the AlleyCats were led by Cameron Brock and Rick Gross with five goals in the game. In this game, Travis Carpenter had one assist and 52 completions. When Carpenter and Brock are on offense together, they combined for a 68 conversion percentage, compared to the team’s 56 percentage. Leonard said “these guys played great, no doubt about it.”
“I’ve been really pleased the performance of the entire offensive unit, which includes Cam and Travis,” Leonard said. “Not only are they great offensively, they are both playing excellent defense as well.”
After this game, Indianapolis move its record to 3-1 and second place in the division. Brock would have wanted the team at this record at the beginning of the season.
“Obviously you want to win them all, but I knew Madison was going to be a tough game,” Brock said. “I figured if we could snag the other 3, we would be in good shape. We need to keep stringing wins together, though, and not get complacent because of a good start to the season.”
The AlleyCats are on a two-game winning streak. Their next road game is at 5 p.m. against Detroit Mechanix on May 5 at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights, Michigan.
Patrick Murphy 