After losing a one goal heartbreaker last week against the New York Lizards, the Launch are back and ready to square off with the newest MLL franchise, the Dallas Rattlers. This Memorial Day Weekend game at home will be the team’s last home game until July, as they hit the road for a four game road trip spanning the month of June. Last Saturday, the Launch led the entire game until the fourth quarter when the Lizards took off for three consecutive goals to take the lead with one-minute left in the affair. Despite Kieran McArdle’s six-point performance (5G, 1A) to lead the team, the Launch could not even the score in the last minute to take the game to overtime. Coach Tom Mariano noted, “The key was we had a lot of opportunities we left on the table, and opportunities we didn’t take advantage of.” In the loss, Dylan Molloy found the back of the net four times, his season-high in goals scored, and face-off specialist Ben Williams went 66% on the night at the face-off X, his season best so far as well. “We had a lot more face-offs then them, we just needed to be a little bit better”, said Coach on Williams success last week. The Rattlers on the other hand are coming in sitting in second place in the league, after an overtime win in week five against the Atlanta Blaze. In the game, Ryan McNamara scored three goals, including the overtime winner to secure the victory. Jordan Wolf and Ty Thompson lead the newest MLL franchise in points, who will be making their first trip to Florida for this matchup on Saturday. Even with the four wins under their belts, all of the Rattlers games have been tightly contested. Three of the four wins have been one-goal games. Launch attackmen Molloy, McArdle, Drenner and now Heningburg will have to pay close attention to where Rattler defender, Joel White is. Just Tuesday he was named Warrior Defensive Player of the Week after picking up six groundballs and scoring two points. However, this will allow the offensive unit to share the ball and work as a cohesive unit, which was lacking and led to last week’s second half scoring breakdown. The defense has been a continuous bright spot for the Launch. Long stick defenders, Tucker Durkin, Jarrod Neumann, Alec Tulett and PT Ricci have been holding their own against opposing teams top scoring threats. Tucker Durkin played one of his best games against the Lizards, shutting down MLL leading scorer Rob Pannell, holding him to just two assists. The defensive squad as a whole has already forced 20 turnovers and picked up 36 groundballs. Austin Kaut also continues to remind us why he was the league leader in saves last season. The five-year veteran has now amassed 563 saves in his career in a Launch uniform and 79 saves this season (second most in the league). Watch LIVE this Saturday at 7pm at FAU Stadium and send off the team on a high note heading into their June road trip, where they will square off in Boston, New York, Denver and Charlotte before coming back home the first weekend in July. Get your tickets to the show HERE or call us at 561-923-9067 to reserve your seat now!