By RICHIE HALL
WESTFIELD – The second half of the AUDL season began for the Indianapolis AlleyCats Saturday night, and the team is hoping for a turnaround.
The AlleyCats hosted the Minnesota Wind Chill at the Grand Park Events Center. While there were some solid moments for Indianapolis during the game, the inexperience still showed at times from the young ‘Cats, and they fell to Minnesota 25-18.
Indianapolis coach Will Drumright called it “feast or famine” – he said the team hasn’t “been able to find that middle ground” of being able to play consistently one way or the other.
“We’re allowing mistakes to build up early in the game and we’re having to find a way to claw ourselves out of it,” said Drumright.
The Wind Chill scored the game’s first goal 50 seconds in. The AlleyCats answered right at the 10-minute mark, with Lucas Coniaris throwing to Travis Carpenter, a 14-yard pass for the tying goal.
But that would be as close as the ‘Cats would get. Minnesota quickly scored back-to-back goals and never trailed again. The Wind Chill led 7-5 after the first quarter and 12-9 at halftime.
There were some highlight plays from Indianapolis. The first quarter ended with Jacob Fella (one of the tallest players on the AlleyCats team at 6’4”) making a one-handed grab off a 75-yard pass from Levi Jacobs for a goal. Indianapolis then emerged victorious in the first sequence of the second quarter when, after 2 minutes and 49 seconds of back-and-forth, Carter Rae threw a 39-yard pass to Nick Hutton.
That was the AlleyCats’ first back-to-back scoring of the night, and it got them within 7-6. Minnesota scored again for an 8-7 lead, but the ‘Cats cut it again: Chris Walsh’s block set up a 19-yard score, with Cameron Brock catching the goal pass from Carpenter.
This was Brock’s second game since coming out of retirement last week. Brock intended to play in the 2020 season, but it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Brock announced his retirement last year during Labor Day weekend.
Brock and his wife were planning on being foster parents this summer, but that changed when they found out she was pregnant.
“We’ve been going through training, and when we found out she was pregnant and that we were going to be having another baby soon, we decided to put the foster care stuff on hold until the next baby’s here and gets a little older,” said Brock.
Meanwhile, Brock had been staying in shape and thinking about returning to ultimate disc play. Many of his former teammates had been reaching out to him about potentially coming back.
“They kept asking like, ‘Hey, you want to?’” said Brock. “They were kind of joking and kind of not joking.”
After discussing it with the coach and the team, Brock came back to the AlleyCats. As one of the veteran players on the team, he said he has been communicating with the younger players.
“I don’t know if I’d say I have a leadership role, necessarily, but I definitely am trying to be talking to the younger guys and the new guys as much as possible just to make sure that they’re feeling good about what’s going on, answer any questions, try to build them up and build some confidence in them,” said Brock.
The AlleyCats and the Wind Chill continued to trade goals in the third quarter. When Minnesota scored back-to-back goals late in the period, Indianapolis was able to respond with consecutive scores, with the first goal a diving catch by Carpenter off a 72-yard toss by Rick Gross. On the next sequence, Carpenter sent a 24-yard goal pass to Conner Henderson, keeping the ‘Cats within 18-15.
The Wind Chill scored at the last second, though, giving them a 19-15 lead at the end of three. A pass from Henderson to Kyle Romard kept Indianapolis within 20-17, but Minnesota ran away with the game after that, scoring four straight goals to clinch the contest.
Henderson, Carpenter and Brock all finished the game with three goals, while Levi Jacobs scored two. Gross had four assists, followed by Jacobs and Carpenter with three each and Walsh and Henderson with two each.
The AlleyCats dropped to 2-5 and will be away from Grand Park for the next month, playing their next four games on the road. Indianapolis plays at Madison on Saturday night, then has a quick trip to Chicago the next day (July 18) for an afternoon game with the Union.
All of those road games will be outdoors, which Drumright said will “change up the game a little bit.”
“With the team, we’re going to change the metrics of how we view success of what we need to be doing on the field,” said Drumright. “Very simple Xs and Os are what’s going to be are what we’re going to focus on.”
“I think no matter what happens this year, we need to keep trying to build positive momentum, so that no matter what happens this year, we can still take that positive momentum into next year,” said Brock. He used the example of the Phoenix Suns, who after a bad season last year, won their last eight games and used that as momentum for this season – and they are presently playing in the NBA Finals.
“They talk about how that was a catalyst for this season, and I think that’s got to be the same with us,” said Brock.