Ryan Baker
Despite a rather odd doubleheader schedule for the Madison Radicals, they walked out 1-1 on the weekend, moving to 4-3 on the season and staying in second place in the division.
The first game was the first-ever Thursday night game in UFA history, against an opponent they had never played before, the Salt Lake Shred. The second game was Sunday afternoon, a rematch with the Chicago Union.
The Radicals fell to the Shred 23-19, but bounced back, played through inclement weather, and beat the Union 14-11, showing the weekend split came with one costly loss and one needed win.
The Shred came into their interdivisional doubleheader weekend with a chip on their shoulder and their backs against the wall in their divisional race. That was felt all night from Madison, who didn’t play to their standards for much of the game.
They got broken on the first O-line point after a Max Sample turnover, which is a tough scene to start the game down by two. The first goal for Madison came from a 43-yard huck from Jake Carrico to Anthony Gutowsky on a point with great movement from Carrico and Victor Luo.
The Shred were taking advantage of Madison’s downfield defense, scoring their next two goals on hucks. It wasn’t until Ian McCosky dropped a pass that Salt Lake had a short field and an easy score, going up by three.
The deficit was cut to two at the buzzer after Jack Nelson tossed a nice cross-field hammer that was tipped by a Salt Lake defender, but was ultimately caught by Eric Sjostrom. The Radicals were throwing punches back and forth, but lost focus when one of the best pulls at Breese Stevens Field floated into the back line, giving the Shred full defensive coverage before the disc even landed.
Sjostrom turned it, leading to another Shred break score and putting the Radicals down by four. A near four-minute stretch ate up the majority of the clock heading into halftime, but the Shred also scored in 32 seconds, draining the clock and putting Madison down by four.
“We just have a little disconnect in our offense that we're trying to work through,” said Sam Stark, who has been playing O-line for the past three games. “It's not a personnel issue. It's been a lot of fun switching over and playing with them right now.”
The Radicals didn’t get their first break until the first point after halftime. Carrico managed a block and put it up to Anthony Gutowsky, who roofed his defender, but the momentum didn’t last long.
“They're a really solid team,” Carrico said. “It wakes something up in you. You really have to adapt in-game. Top to bottom, they have a really deep roster, so credit to them. They didn't make a ton of mistakes.”
The third quarter is where Madison let Salt Lake run away with the game. Throwaways by Sjostrom, Carrico, and Sample led to three straight breaks for Salt Lake, and all of a sudden, the score was 11-18.
“They were doing some stuff with their marks that was making us have to think a little extra sometimes,” Stark said. “Some of the motion that we were originally going for wasn't there, but we just took a while to adjust to that, especially in the early game.”
With twelve minutes left, Madison was down by five, but it was just too big a deficit to come back from against a team like the Shred. They showed grit playing through to the end, but got broken two more times in the fourth quarter.
Madison shot it deep, the most they have in a game all season, going 7/13, but managed just a 20 percent break rate and missed three opportunities in the red zone.
“Some of its execution errors, and just like feeling a different type of pressure,” Stark stated. “Sometimes we get set in one motion, and we kind of forget that we're trying to create multiple avenues to score.”
The impact players on Thursday night were Carrico, who had four assists; Stark, who threw three assists and had a layout block; and McCosky, with three assists, a goal, and over 500 total yards. Gutowsky posted two assists, three goals, and a block, while Pieran Robert continued his high-scoring season with four goals.
“First and foremost, Gumby [Anthony Gutowsky] helps a lot,” Carrico said, referring to his performance against the Shred. “Having someone like him who has a nose for the disc and is hunting, he and I have had a good connection. But I'd take a bad performance and a win over a good performance and a loss.”
As Madison turned its attention to Sunday, that result gave the Radicals something to build on.
That moves us on to a much sloppier game against the Union three days later. Rain and wind caused havoc all night for both teams, resulting in 14 total drops. The good news is that Chicago had 10 of them.
Madison was able to take advantage of those drops, but it wasn’t until the second half. There were only eight total points in the first half, including a five-minute point, a four-minute point, and two points that lasted just over three minutes.
At halftime, each team had only one break, and Madison committed nine turnovers while Chicago had ten. Then, on the second point of the second half, Matt Grinde raced down the field and poked away the centering throw off the pull. That gave Victor Luo an opening to push Madison up by two.
The lead went away three minutes later after a Chicago hold, Nico Ranabhat turnover, and a Chicago break. From there, Gutowsky put his mark on the game, scoring on a pass from Kelsen Alexander, then blocking a huck attempt, and the Radicals cashed in on the chance with a Joe Leibforth-to-Max Junga break score.
A third straight score followed, and Madison got their lead back up to two heading into the fourth quarter. The Radicals took advantage of the Union’s drops, scoring another three-point run and putting the game away halfway through the fourth.
Gutowsky tacked on four more goals and two blocks to his weekend, while Robert added another three goals and two blocks as well. McCosky and Gabe Vordick led the charge in the throwing department, combining for five assists, two goals, and nearly 800 total yards.
Overall, it was a sloppy game for both sides, but Madison locked in during the second half and took advantage when it mattered most. More broadly, while the Salt Lake game doesn’t affect the standings as much as the Chicago game, it still showed that the Radicals struggle against deeper, more talented rosters. Their play will need to step up from this weekend to maintain their position in the division and potentially host a playoff game.
The team heads into back-to-back games against the AlleyCats over the next 2 weekends including Friday night July 3rd at Breese Stevens Field.
