Chip and Chirp: The Week 4 Preview

Chip and Chirp: The Week 4 Preview

Two lax dads. One Braveheart. One twin showdown. One point separating the MVP race.

Good morning, Drew League. It is game day, and before we get to a single matchup, we need to address the most important development of the week.

The league published the stat board.

(Chirp here. I want everyone to understand what has happened. A youth lacrosse league has given me a full, sortable leaderboard. Points. Goals. Ground balls. Saves. CAUSED TURNOVERS. Sortable! By position! I have been up since 4:40 in the morning. My wife has asked me to speak about something else at breakfast, and I have respectfully declined. Back to you, Chip.)

He is not exaggerating, folks, and honestly, neither am I when I say the numbers tell the story of a league that has gotten very real, very fast. Four weeks in, the standings have shape, the MVP race is a photo finish, and tonight's card at Smith Turf Fields might be the best one yet. Six games, three fields, every team plays twice, and before ANY of that, a piece of unfinished business gets settled at 6:30.

Let's go.

FIRST: THE BRAVEHEART, 6:30 PM

You know the story. Two weeks ago the Bears and Golden Eagles played to a 5-5 draw, the first tie in Drew League history, and the league, in its infinite wisdom, ruled that it shall be settled the old way: a sudden-death Braveheart faceoff before tonight's regular slate.

One draw. Next goal wins. That is the whole format.

The stakes could not be neater. The Bears are chasing the first win in franchise history, and a Braveheart victory would be the single most dramatic way any team in any sport has ever gotten off the schneid. The Eagles are protecting their spot in the East, currently second at 2-1, just a game and a half back of the unbeaten Buffalos, and every result matters in that chase. Noah Parker owes the lacrosse gods a make-good after the Kiss Incident. Nolan Roach has 21 saves in his two career Drew games and a net to guard.

(Chirp here. I have moved every obligation in my life. I will be at that field at 6:10 with two chairs, one for me and one for my emotions. If you show up at 6:45 and it is over and it was legendary, I warned you twice in print. Back to you, Chip.)

Get there early. This is the one they will talk about at the reunion.

The Standings Check

Four weeks in, here is the board: the Buffalos sit alone at the top, a perfect 4-0. The Golden Eagles are second at 2-1, a game and a half back. The Snipes and Turtles are locked in a dead heat in the West at 2-2 apiece. The Wolves are 1-3 with a trend line pointing straight up, and the Cardiac Bears are 0-3 with two one-goal losses, a tie, and tonight, a chance to change everything.

And the MVP race, oh, the MVP race. Noah Parker: 19 points on a preposterous 16 goals, a hat trick in every game he has played. Beckett Scoggins: 18 points, one single point behind. They do not play each other tonight, which means it is a scoreboard-watching night, the best kind of night. More on the board down in Chirp's Calls.

Field 1, 7:00 PM: Wolves vs Golden Eagles

The rematch nobody should sleep on. Opening night, the Eagles beat a shorthanded Wolves team 7-4. That Wolves team no longer exists. This one has Benjamin Brewer back, a first win in the bank, and the confidence of a group that took the unbeaten Buffalos to the final minute last week.

And the matchup within the matchup is the best goalie-versus-scorer duel this league can offer: Nixon Paylor, the league's runaway saves leader with 27 stops PLUS five points of his own from the cage, against Noah Parker, the league's points leader, who has never played a Drew game without recording a hat trick. Something has to give, and we will be standing directly behind the goal arguing about it.

Field 1, 7:45 PM: Wolves vs Turtles

Believe it or not, a first meeting. Four weeks in, and these two rosters have never shared a field. The Wolves get the league's hottest stat-sheet-stuffer in Beckett Scoggins, one point out of the MVP lead and hunting. The Turtles get the Wolves' rising tide, Wade Swanson quietly co-leading the ENTIRE LEAGUE in ground balls with 15, Leo Gilfillan right behind him with 14, and a certain first overall pick guarding the cage. Fresh matchup, real stakes, and the West standings feel it either way.

Field 2, 7:00 PM: Buffalos vs Turtles

The heavyweight rematch. Opening night, the Buffalos beat the Turtles and started this 4-0 run. The Turtles have spent every week since proving they are nobody's stepping stone, taking down the Eagles 7-6 and pushing the highest-scoring game in league history against the Snipes. Now they get their shot at the top of the mountain, with Beckett Scoggins chasing an MVP lead and DJ Matthews, the league's resident mad scientist, drawing up who knows what. Six field players? Seven? A trebuchet? We would put nothing past him, and we mean that as the highest compliment.

Field 2, 7:45 PM: Buffalos vs Bears

First meeting of the season, and the plot writes itself: the only unbeaten team in the league against the only winless one, and a certain co-columnist has NOTARIZED PAPERWORK declaring the Bears will make the finals.

(Chirp here. I regret nothing. The Bears have lost their games by a combined margin of almost nothing, they added a goalie with 21 saves in two games, they are the best passing team in the league, and if they steal the Braveheart at 6:30 they will walk into this one at 7:45 riding the biggest emotional high in league history. The Buffalos are great. Evan Marsh leads the league in caused turnovers. The Hays brothers are a problem. And I am STILL not backing off the call. Back to you, Chip.)

Field 3, 7:00 PM: Snipes vs Bears

Rematch of the week one 6-5 classic, when the Snipes edged the Bears by a single goal in a game that low-key announced both teams' whole identities: the Snipes' firepower, the Bears' refusal to go away. Since then the Snipes have added an 11-goal night from Wylie Paylor, a rookie-of-the-year campaign from Dean Terrell, and a long pole permanently attached to Holden Roberts. The Cardiac Bears do not care about any of that. One-goal games are their home address. Set your heart rate monitors accordingly.

Field 3, 7:45 PM: Snipes vs Golden Eagles

THE CLEMMONS BOWL IS HERE.

Beck Clemmons of the Snipes. Briggs Clemmons of the Golden Eagles. Twin brothers, both first-year players, both having breakout seasons, on the same field, on opposite sides, for the first time. We have been hyping this since the day we learned it existed, and it is finally, actually happening tonight at 7:45 on Field 3.

(Chirp here. Somewhere there is one family sideline that cannot lose and cannot win, and I need everyone to check on the Clemmons parents tonight. Bring them snacks. They are living every youth sports scenario simultaneously. Back to you, Chip.)

Oh, and the rest of the matchup is enormous too: Wylie Paylor and the Snipes' league-leading ground ball machine against Landon Long, The Ice Man, top of the goalie board with 23 saves and a face that has never once revealed a thought. The Eagles are chasing the Buffalos in the East. The Snipes are chasing the Turtles in the West. Nightcap of the year candidate.

Chip's Corner

One thing I am watching tonight, straight from the heart.

The crease on the Bears' end of the field.

Because if the plan we wrote about two weeks ago holds, tonight might be the night young Matty Carter takes his first turn in goalie gear, with 21-save veteran Nolan Roach as his personal professor. The apprenticeship we promised you. The kid who raised his hand.

Now, plans at this age are written in sidewalk chalk, and if it does not happen tonight, it will happen soon, and that is fine. But if you look down at that field at some point this evening and you see a young Bear stepping into the cage for the very first time, here is what I am asking of every single Drew League family within earshot:

Be loud. Be ridiculous. Cheer the warmup saves. Cheer the ones that go in, too, because every goalie who ever lived got scored on, and the brave part is standing there anyway.

The Matty Carter fan club has been meeting at the fence for two weeks now. Dues are still free. Tonight we might get our first official event, and I have already ironed my lucky shirt.

(Chirp here. It is a terrible shirt. He looks wonderful in it. Back to you, Chip.)

Chirp's Calls

Powered, for the first time in history, by AN ACTUAL SORTABLE STAT BOARD. What a time to be alive.

From the board, the numbers that made me gasp:

The ground ball race is a WOLVES AND SNIPES street fight. Connley Bowen, one of the youngest players in the entire league, is tied for the league lead with FIFTEEN ground balls, alongside teammate Wade Swanson, also fifteen. Right behind them: Leo Gilfillan and Jay Palmer stacking double digits for the Wolves, and the Snipes' Porter Whitcomb and Wylie Paylor sitting on fourteen apiece. Youngest kid in the gym, leading the league in the toughest stat. I have printed this page.

Nixon Paylor leads all goalies with 27 saves AND has five points from the cage. There are field players who would take that stat line. He is a goalie. First overall picks, man.

Evan Marsh leads the entire league with FOURTEEN caused turnovers. His week three takeover was not a hot night, it was a lifestyle.

The goalie board reads 27, 23, 23, 21: Paylor, Gunnar Lyon, Landon Long, Nolan Roach. Four keepers, four teams, all of them capable of stealing any game on any night. We are living in the golden age of Drew League goaltending and I refuse to let it pass unremarked.

And the big one: Noah Parker 19, Beckett Scoggins 18. Sixteen goals for Noah. Twelve goals and a league-best six assists for Beckett. One point. ONE. They both play twice tonight and neither plays the other, so every goal either of them scores echoes across two fields. This is the best race in youth sports and I will not be taking questions about that claim.

Tonight's Bold Calls, notarized as always:

1. The Braveheart is decided inside 90 seconds of game time, and the roar is heard at the concession stand, in the parking lot, and faintly, in New England.
2. The Clemmons Bowl produces at least one moment where both twins are directly involved in the same play, and one Clemmons parent laughs and covers their face with both hands.
3. The MVP race is still separated by two points or fewer when the lights go out tonight.
4. A goalie records a point tonight, because apparently that is just what goalies do in this league now.
5. The Cardiac Bears play at least one more one-goal game, because the sun rises, the tide comes in, and the Bears play one-goal games. And if the first win comes tonight, in ANY of their chances, this column will publish a commemorative edition. That is a threat and a promise.

(Chip here. See you at Smith Turf Fields, 2399 Veasley Street. Braveheart at 6:30, arrive by 6:15 for warmups, regular games at 7:00 and 7:45. Bring water, bring your loudest positive cheering, and hug your kid after the game no matter what the scoreboard says. That is the Drew way. Back to you, nobody. That is the end of the preview.)

Tonight at The Drew

Week 4. Wednesday, August 5. Smith Turf Fields, 2399 Veasley St, Greensboro. Arrive 6:15. Braveheart at 6:30, games 7:00 to 8:30. Six games, three fields, every team plays twice.

6:30 PM, Braveheart: Bears vs Golden Eagles, sudden death, next goal wins.

Field 1: Wolves vs Golden Eagles, 7:00 PM. Wolves vs Turtles, 7:45 PM.

Field 2: Buffalos vs Turtles, 7:00 PM. Buffalos vs Bears, 7:45 PM.

Field 3: Snipes vs Bears, 7:00 PM. Snipes vs Golden Eagles, 7:45 PM. (The Clemmons Bowl.)

Chip and Chirp are two former New England lax rats who followed the sun south and never left. Their opinions are their own, their memories of their playing days are heavily exaggerated, and their love for the kids of The Drew League is one hundred percent verified. See you at the fields.