As the NLL regular season approaches, the Vancouver Warriors have been putting in the work through training camp and scrimmages, with one more exhibition game on the horizon before the season starts on November 29th.
They are building on their systems from last season and making sure it’s all systems go for the regular season.
After some hard work in the first two weeks of training camp, the Warriors won their first exhibition game 16-9 against the Colorado Mammoth. Warriors’ General Manager and Head Coach Curt Malawsky said they were able to apply everything they went over in the first two weeks of training camp, and they played to their structure.
Down 6-4 at the half, the coaching staff reminded the group what makes them a successful team and hard to play against and they got back to that in the second half. Malawsky noted that his team relied too heavily on perimeter play early in the game and emphasized the need to increase physicality and dominate the middle of the floor at both ends.
“For us it was about refining what we needed to do and cleaning up some things defensively, which I thought Robby did a good job adjusting and our veterans did a good job. And then offensively, I thought we had some quality looks,” Malawksy said.
“We needed to get down to the fundamentals of what makes us successful – it doesn’t need to be fancy; it doesn’t need to be special. It just needs to be old school, physical, earn everything you get and that honest effort. I thought our guys buckled down and made it difficult for their offensive guys to get to the middle and offensive guys were able to pay the price to get inside.”
“I think what’s big for us is make sure we try to control the tempo of the game and we don’t get too high and we don’t get too low. We don’t panic in certain situations, we just play composed, resilient lacrosse and I think that’s something that comes with effort and our guys have never not had effort.
The rookies quickly adapted to the increased speed and physicality of the NLL, putting their lessons from the first two weeks of camp to the test against Colorado.
“It was good for Cormier to understand the speed of the game and then the physicality of it and the same with Peshko, obviously on the back end with Schenato, he was very physical, he ran the floor very well and was a presence on the back end. I thought Alec Stathakis did an exceptional job not only winning the faceoffs. The Mammoth didn’t have a true faceoff guy, but you play whoever they put in front of you, I thought he controlled the ball, he didn’t turn it over and he made a really nice decision on a three-on-two with Dilks,” Malawsky said.
As they continue to improve, the Warriors are working on situational play and making sure they’re focusing on the details. Taking four offensive-zone penalties in the first half of the scrimmage served as a reminder to play ‘two-hand tough’ lacrosse—aggressive yet disciplined.
“Walking that line and having that mental discipline is very important, but the work ethic has always been there, the compete has always been there, we just have to make sure that we’re toeing the line and not crossing it.,” Malawsky said. “I think we did that in the second half, and I think our guys understood the tale of the two halves which is what training camp and exhibition games are for – to remind yourself of what you need to do to be successful.”
With a week and a half left until the regular season, the Warriors are fine-tuning and making improvements ahead of their final exhibition game against the Calgary Roughnecks on Saturday.
