Elite Defensive Performance Stuns Boston in PLL Quarterfinals

BOSTON— We’ve all heard the phrase ‘defense wins championships’ way too many times, and all season long we knew the Carolina Chaos had the defense to go far in the playoffs, but the offense was always in question. 

However, on Labor Day, the Chaos never left a shred of doubt on the table no matter how many goals they scored as they turned in perhaps the most dominant postseason defensive performance in PLL history in an 8-4 quarterfinal upset win over the Boston Cannons at Gillette Stadium.

Carolina did so without one of their best defenders, Jack Rowlett, who was serving a one-game suspension due to an illegal check. The biggest highlight of the strong defensive performance from Carolina was holding Boston in a scoring drought that lasted exactly 28 minutes. 

The Cannons tallied their third goal with over seven minutes remaining in the second quarter and did not score again until just over three minutes left in the contest on a goal from Asher Nolting, but by then, the Chaos had already put it out of reach with their offense. One of the breakout players on the defensive side for Carolina was Troy Reh, who finished with nine ground balls and two caused turnovers.

“I’ve said it for about 3-4 years now that I think Troy Reh is one of the most underrated players in the entire league,” said Chaos Head Coach Andy Towers. “I’ve never seen anyone play passing lanes the way that he has played them and he was all over the ground balls today. All he cares about is winning so it is important that we recognize him for the impact that he’s made on this team not just this year, but for the last five seasons.”

The start of the game looked impressive for the Chaos on the offensive end, scoring two goals in the first seven minutes of the game. Jules Henningburg got on the board first with a long shot just inside of the perimeter, while Byrne added the second proving his playoff and championship experience as a necessity for the success of this team. Pat Kavanuagh got the Cannons on the board to end the quarter with a 2-1 Chaos advantage.

The second quarter saw two goals a piece from each team as the Chaos got contributions from their young guys in Tye Kurtz and Ross Scott giving the red and black a 4-3 lead heading into the break. Three third quarter goals jump started the ensuing four goal run that would put the game away. 

The highlight of that run was undoubtedly a less than ten-second sequence from Blaze Riorden to Ian McKay who threaded the needle in transition in a behind-the-back pass to Byrne who finished the play on a beautiful bounce shot. The trio looked like they were gearing up for when they all head to Utica later this month for the world box lacrosse championships for Team USA and Canada respectively. 

Kyle Jackson put two goals in the back of the net both on power plays to end that lengthy stretch. The ball movement looked as well as it had all season in those situations evidently finding Jackson all alone in front of the net on both occasions to end the sequences.

Byrne and Kurtz co-lead Carolina’s offensive production with goals and an assist each while Jackson finished with two goals. Heningburg also tallied a goal and an assist, while Brian Minicus assisted two in the win for the sixth-seeded Chaos. Jarrod Neuman helped Reh out on the defensive side of the ball with four ground balls, while Riorden was as stingy as always with an outstanding 15 goals, posting a save percentage of 79.

After a good week last week at the face-off X, Coach Towers made the difficult decision of starting James Reilly over Nick Rowlett who just came back from injury. Reilly finished the game 7-for-15 in the playoff victory. Towers said while the decision was hard, both guys were as classy as could be with the same mindset goal of helping the team win at all costs.

“James came in today and played great today and he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do,” Towers added. “Also, credit to Nick Rowlett. When we informed Nick that JR was going to be the guy we were going to go with in the playoffs, he made plans to come up here on his own to get JR ready to play. You find out which guys have character when you give them bad news, and when we gave Nick bad news, he decided to come up to help JR and the team. That speaks volume about Nick Rowlett and it speaks volumes about the players we have in our locker room.”

The Chaos will look to continue their magic as they now head to the PLL semifinals to take on the second-seeded Utah Archers Saturday night at 7:30pm. The two teams split in the regular season, but the best offensive performance for Carolina this season came against the Archers in a 15-14 win. There is hope they can take what they learned from that game to have another successful outcome on the attack while keeping their same stingy defense to the table.