When the Chrome beat the Whipsnakes in Week 3 of the 2021 Premier Lacrosse League season, the victory snapped a Whipsnakes winning streak that lasted 672 days. The team wasn’t accustomed to losing, but as the cliché goes, when it rains, it pours.
While the Whips bounced back with a one-goal victory over the Archers the following week, they lost each of the next two games against the Redwoods and Waterdogs, dropping the team to 4-3 on the season.
The Whipsnakes don’t look as dominant as the team that went undefeated in the 2020 Championship Series and was crowned the back-to-back champion. After the loss to the Waterdogs, Whipsnakes LSM Michael Erhardt pointed out in a postgame press conference that, with one weekend remaining in the regular season, it’s gut-check time.
“We’ve got to put the work in,” he said. “We’ve got to hold each other accountable. Look, we’re not with each other every week, so it’s tough. Everyone has to go out there, put the work in, take extra shots, get extra footwork in, do the conditioning. We’ve been talking about it a lot. We just haven’t really been doing it out there on the field. We really got to come back. People have to look themselves in the mirror. If we’re going to turn this ship around, then we’ve got to go do it. There’s no excuses on both sides of the field. We’ve just got to go out there and do it.”
The obvious difference between the championship Whipsnakes of 2019 and 2020 versus the team that’s lost three of its past four games in 2021 is the absence of 2019 MVP Matt Rambo. Rambo suffered a wrist injury against the Chrome, forcing him to leave in the third quarter. He has yet to come back.
After the Waterdogs game, Whipsnakes head coach Jim Stagnitta said Rambo was “a great player” and that he hoped he would available for the team’s final two games in Week 8 in Albany, but he also said that he was “not a magic dart or bullet” that would be a quick fix to the team’s problems.
Whipsnakes players won’t make excuses and say Rambo’s injury is the reason for their most recent slide, but they also can’t help but point out how important he is to the team.
“You take LeBron off the Lakers, and who are the Lakers?” 2020 PLL MVP Zed Williams said. “I miss that guy. I miss seeing him at the airport and on the bus and hearing his voice. Having him around brings up everyone’s spirit and confidence.”
“Although Matt is not the whole offense, he takes a lot of pressure off everybody else,” Joe Nardella said. “He’s also our best leader and organizer and gets the best cover guy. When they slide, he’s the best at distributing the ball. I’d like to say not having Matt Rambo is not the reason for our slide, but it doesn’t help when your top guy is sitting at home watching the games with his hand on his chest.”
Missing Rambo doesn’t make anything easier for the Whipsnakes, but as Stagnitta said, there’s more to the recent Whipsnakes issues than his absence, and the players echoed that sentiment. The biggest issue, they believe, is an overall lack of execution. Nardella and Williams looked inward and placed blame on themselves.
Nardella, who led the league in faceoff winning percentage in 2020 (72 percent), has a winning percentage of 42 percent in the team’s three losses, including a 5-for-18 performance from the stripe in the game against the Waterdogs. Williams is the team’s leading scorer with 16 points, yet in the team’s three losses, he has a total of two goals. Against the Waterdogs, he didn’t tally a single point.
“I go back from how these guys are off the field. They’re very caring and welcoming and good human beings. I’m tired of letting them down,” Williams said. “We’ve got it. We’re just going through a down time. I’m going through a shooting slump. It’s up to us to respond and get out of it. I’ve had opportunities I didn’t bury. It’s on me. That’s all. That’s how you get better. You’re not going to get better blaming other people. I strongly believe in this team. If I make a couple more plays, the outcome is different.”
While the Whipsnakes have seemed unbeatable the past two years, they experienced a similar losing skid before their first championship in 2019. After starting the 2019 season 4-0, the team lost three of its next four games and finished the season 6-4 before a pair of victories in the playoffs.
Recovering from that previous slump is just one more reason Nardella is staying confident.
“The past is something you can learn from,” he said. “There’s other teams that have struggled and bounced back. The [St. Louis] Blues went from being in last place to winning the Stanley Cup. It takes one little success, and you keep stacking on it.”
With a bye week before the final weekend, the team has plenty of time to make adjustments before taking on both the Redwoods and Archers prior to the playoffs.
Inside the locker room, Nardella said the team has watched more film already than ever before and is collaborating to work through the issues they find.
Outside the organization, the team traded rookie defender Nick Grill to the Chrome for attackman Justin Guterding. While Guterding has five goals and one assist in six games in 2021, he had 10 goals and six assists in five games in 2020 and 19 goals and 14 assists in 10 games in 2019. The move has the team excited; Nardella said he could be the jolt the team needs while Williams added that it shows how much Stagnitta wants to win. He could be a capable Rambo replacement for the time being.
“I take it as, Stagnitta wants to win by any means,” Williams said. “I’m the same way. Everyone else in the locker room wants to win. Even in the offseason, everyone loaded up to take us out. We have to keep getting better. That’s the name of the game. We have to get smarter. You have to keep getting better and make smart decisions.”
Despite the recent struggles, the Whipsnakes still own a record that is above .500, and they clinched a playoff spot with two games to spare. Nardella and Williams said it was not time to hit the panic button yet, but they did say the final weekend was extremely important in order to gain back some momentum and confidence going into the playoffs.
The path to a championship won’t be easy — especially since it is likely the team will not earn the first-round bye — but the team is ready to fight until the end.
“We have gotten everyone’s best,” Nardella said. “We haven’t been at our best with intensity and focus. We’ve lost our composure. We’re human. It happens. We can’t expect to win every game for the rest of our lives. It’s probably better for us. We can seek out improvement because where we’re at is not good enough.”
“Nothing is going to be easy,” Williams said. “We have to be ready to fight, but that’s what lacrosse is about. Nothing comes easy. At the end of the day, it’s a blessing to play lacrosse and be on the Whipsnakes.”