Georgia Swarm
Taking advantage of the trade deadline, the Swarm made moves with Buffalo to send the second-oldest Thompson brother, Hiana, to the South to join up with his little brothers, Miles and Lyle. Hiana had a breakout season in 2015 as a 26 year-old rookie and although he doesn’t have years of experience in the NLL, Thompson is going to bring age and wisdom to a lockerroom packed full of youngsters. They also sent Joe Maracle and Josh Gillam to the Rochester Knighthawks in exchange for their 3rd round 2016 Entry Draft pick and their 2nd round selection in 2018. Young Iroquois Nationals defenseman Wenster Green was inked to a 1-year deal at the deadline, but I don’t expect to see him on the floor yet.
At the beginning of the season, this team was almost unbelievably good. Although they haven’t maintained a positive records throughout the 2016 campaign, there has been so much promise out of the youthful group. First, who would have thought that Randy Staats would be leading the team in total points? The rookie has picked up 23 goals and 29 assists through all 12 games, he actually has 1 more goal than Miles and Lyle Thompson combined. Not that Thompsons haven’t been good, they just haven’t been what most of us expected. Lyle has 12 goals in 12 games, not bad for a rookie, but how could we not expect the modern messiah of field lacrosse to not come in and dominate the NLL with his unparalleled style of play? Miles has taken a bit of a dive since his break-out debut in 2015, average almost a full point per game less than his brother. After 11 games, Miles brought in 10 goals and 15 assists, pretty far off from the 62 points he was good for last year.Getting ahold of Johnny Powless has been a huge spark for the offense, he’s average 2 goals and 2 assists per game right at 49 points. This has been Powless’ best year to date, only 4 points off his own record and when it comes to putting up points, rookie Jesse King and the elusive Shayne Jackson aren’t far off. King is hanging out with 48 points, 35 of which come from assists by the big man and the veteran Jackson has been able to take a breather after last season, but has still contribute 23 goals and 24 assists in all 12 games.
The young, fast transition unit has been packing in their fair share of points. The focus needs to be kept on defense through the last 6 games. They have a whole array of scorers that can do their thing on any given night, but they’ve given up double-digit goals in all but two games this season. We saw this team self-destruct against Rochester, only scoring 4 total goals in the game, that can’t happen again as they take on 5-straight Eastern Conference opponents in their last 6 games. Led by Jordan MacIntosh’s incredible 19 points and 116 loose balls, Chad Tutton, Joel White, David Earl and Ethan O’Connor have all been vacuums on loose balls and have done their parts to get points on the board. The group can forcer turnovers and push tempo, but they’re struggling to keep the foundation in front of Zack Higgins and Brodie MacDonald. The two net minders have been sharing a lot of the duties and together they average 13.75 goals against per game and a .730 average. They can’t carry all of the burden, the often disheveled defense has to clear out the middle and limit the scoring opportunities if Georgia wants any shot at the post-season.
