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Friday night in Connecticut was much more than a celebration of Rob Pannell’s scoring record and career.
For the Maryland Whipsnakes, everything went right. For the California Redwoods, everything went wrong. A 20-7 rout from the Whips emphasizes them as one of the hotter teams in the league coming around the halftime stretch, moving to 5-3 and inflating their score differential to the clear best in the league.
Pannell (5G, 1A) had six points, as did TJ Malone (5G, 1A) and Joey Spallina (2G, 1T, 2A). Every offensive player had a point, and the Whips have all the momentum after putting together two-straight wins for the first time this season.
“It's just one of the better team wins that I've been a part of in my career, and we've been talking about playing a certain way for the last few weeks after a couple of losses in a row,” said Pannell. “And our team responded last week, and the challenge was to respond again this week against a really good Redwoods team who's had a good season and all over the field. Defensively, goalie, Petey at the face-off X. Offensively, I think we played as complete game as we played all season long, and that's why the result was the way it was.”
“The last two weeks has been as much fun as I've had coaching a team because I'm getting after them, and they're responding. They're doing the thing. That's fun lacrosse to watch. And tonight was just one of those nights,” said coach Jim Stagnitta.
The key was the start of the second half in which they put in seven-straight goals. It was particularly noteworthy for a team that sometimes hasn’t responded and closed things out, and with the Redwoods gaining some late-half momentum with a Chris Kavanagh goal, a strong response was just what they needed.
"They scored that goal at the end of the half, and we've been in that position before. And I had my little say on that early in the locker room, but then I also noticed that we might have lost a little bit of our focus at that point, and maybe flattened out a little bit. And a couple of the guys spoke up, and you know, Rob was one of them. And we talked about we have to go out, and now we gotta we gotta respond, right? That's something we hadn't done when we lost those two games. We did not respond [then], and we responded [today], and we just you know we just kept putting pressure on them, and we executed, and we shared the ball," said Stagnitta.
Pannell started the response with his record-setting goal, moving off ball to tap in a Malone pass.
And instead of relaxing in that momentous occasion, Pannell and the Whips fed off it with more scoring, as Malone got topside and turned and scored shortly after the next LaSalla face-off win. LaSalla won the next face-off forward to find Spallina on the wing, and in the span of 30 seconds and three goals the game felt over.
A caused turnover led directly to Matt Brandau’s goal to go up 11-7. And later in the third, off a restart, Pannell got matched up with a shortie and hit the move everyone has seen but no one has been able to stop for 14 years: the question-mark dodge.
Spallina made it 15-4 on his first career 2-pointer, a peculiar broken play in which he scored falling down into an empty net off a failed clear.
It showcased what could be the best of the Whips’ offense, and though it was Pannell’s night, it was Malone’s offense at the focal point.
“TJ's got an incredible skill set, and when he's playing aggressive — and 3 and 3 last game, he hit 5 and 1 tonight — we're a completely different offense when he's playing aggressive and playing lacrosse, and he's capable of playing makes everyone around him better, and he's just a great human. We all love when TJ's playing well. We go as he goes in the offensive end, and that's I think why we've had really good success last two weeks when he's creating when he is matchup and then creating for others,” said Pannell.
The other locker room is left looking for answers. The Redwoods have lost two in a row, and though they are still in the mix at the top of a tight Western Conference race, their minus-11 score differential is worrisome as is the direction they are trending.
“It's tough to play worse than that,” said Ryder Garnsey. “We didn't look like we were prepared, and I think that the coaches had us prepared. It's on us, 19 guys to go out there and execute, and outside of maybe our goalies a few times that we didn't hang them out to dry, I don't know if anybody executed very well today, both ends of the ball.”
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