By RICHIE HALL
WESTFIELD – In a tight playoff race, every game, every point, every second counts.
That’s the story in the American Ultimate Disc League’s Midwest division right now. The Indianapolis AlleyCats had to play for every point and every second on Saturday when they took on the Minnesota Wind Chill at the Grand Park Events Center.
The AlleyCats won 24-23 in an exciting game that was truly back and forth. The win improved the AlleyCats to 6-3 for their season and pushed them on to the top spot in the Midwest division.
“It was an incredibly exciting game,” said Indianapolis coach Eric Leonard. “Nail-biter all the way through. I feel better about this win than I think any win this entire season.”
The game was tied at 23-23 with 1:40 left in the fourth quarter. The AlleyCats had possession, but Minnesota intercepted the disc. But Indianapolis intercepted it right back with 54 seconds left, then called timeout to set up a play.
There were 51 seconds left when the game resumed, and the AlleyCats ran the clock down within 10 seconds. Keegan North then made a play to Travis Carpenter, who caught the disc in the end zone with four seconds left, providing the go-ahead score.
The strategy was milking the clock, and it worked to perfection.
“We were going to do really short, really easy throws,” said Carpenter. “We weren’t going to take any big shots. We’re going to try to keep it short, keep the clock running.”
“A lot of teams grind clock with their defense,” said Leonard. “We actually grind clock with our offense. In that situation, it’s tied, with about 40 seconds left, we absolutely want to take the last shot, because at worst, we’re going to head to overtime, and we feel comfortable with the way the game was going at that point, we were okay with it. Last shot, absolutely was a clear strategy for us there.”
Carpenter said that the team wasn’t in a rush to score. All the AlleyCats had to was keep possession, and they knew they had a chance.
“We tried to see if there was any open looks,” said Carpenter. “There weren’t, really. They played really good defense, so we just had to wait till the last second to take our shot.”
Indianapolis played good defense too, something that Carpenter said has improved during the second half of the season.
“In the beginning of the season, I feel as though our defense was a little lackluster and we were letting teams off the hook too easily,” said Carpenter. “About halfway through the season, we had a few really serious talks about it as a team. We started really dialing up the pressure on defense and I think that made a big difference. The last game before this one, our defense was even more smothering than that one. We’re just trying to make the second half of the season a new level from the first half.”
Cameron Brock scored six goals for the AlleyCats, with Rick Gross and Keegan North both getting four. Carpenter led in assists with seven, while North dished out six assists and Gross had three. David Hortemiller, North, Nick Hutton and Zach Zebarth each had one “D,” or defensive play.
The AlleyCats opened their season in April with a loss to Madison, 22-20. Indianapolis then won three in a row, taking care of Detroit 26-22 and 19-16 in games played on back-to-back Saturdays.
As May began, the AlleyCats ran their win streak to three with a 19-16 win over Pittsburgh, but Atlanta stopped the streak with a 27-22 win. Indianapolis beat Minnesota in the team’s first meeting of the season 13-11, but Chicago got the AlleyCats 18-17 on May 25. Indianapolis beat Madison 18-15 on June 1; the team had been on a three-week break before its exciting Saturday win.
The AlleyCats are a game ahead of Pittsburgh and Chicago, both of whom have 5-3 record. Those are the only teams left for Indianapolis in the regular season, as it plays at Pittsburgh next Saturday (June 29), then finished the regular season by hosting Chicago on July 6 and Pittsburgh on July 14.
“We’re not taking anything for granted, but we’re playing really well right now and we’re going to ride this momentum as far as it can take us,” said Leonard.
Travis Carpenter makes the winning catch for the Indianapolis AlleyCats in their game with Minnesota Saturday at the Grand Park Events Center. The AlleyCats won 24-23 to improve to 6-3 and take the lead in the AUDL’s Midwest division. (Photo by Mike Gross)