On if playing Charlotte back-to-back contributed to the Hounds changing their game plan and winning on Saturday
“No, I don’t. I think that we were going to play them home-and-home and that I don’t think that the timing of the games had any impact on the outcome of the game.”
On his first loss with the Denver Outlaws
“Well, we went into the game a little bit light personnel-wise. We knew John Grant Jr. would not be available, he had some personal business to attend to. We knew at the beginning of the season that he would be missing that night. Additionally, Jesse Schwartzman has been hampered with some injuries over the last few weeks. He has not been 100 percent. We played him the week before—in hindsight maybe we should have rested him then. He wanted to go, he felt like he could go and he actually had a very good game, but he reinjured himself. So we decided it’s a long season and if there was a time we could give Jesse a rest, it was probably then. We elected to go with Charlie Cipriano who we have a lot of confidence in. Charlie played very well. Then Chris Bocklet went out early in the game with an injury, so we were a little bit shorthanded. I thought Charlotte played very, very well. On the offensive end particularly, they took advantage of some of our miscues. They shot the ball extremely well and they were the better team that night.”
On facing the New York Lizards this weekend
“We’re still day-to-day with Schwartzman and Bocklet. We’ll know more later in the week on that. But John Grant Jr. will definitely be in the lineup this week. New York is obviously a very, very talented team—particularly on the offensive end. They feature, I think, two Tewaaraton Trophy winners (on attack) and one Tewaaraton Trophy winner in the midfield. So they’ve got an All-Star cast. Greg Gurenlian leads the league in faceoffs. So they’re going to be a formidable opponent and we’ve got to bounce back and play our game on both ends of the field.”
On the MLL debut of Curtis Dickson and if he was just filling in on offense last weekend
“No, no. We were thrilled when Curtis signed his contract. We’ve held his rights for three years now and were hoping that day would come. He was tied up with the Calgary Roughnecks in the NLL playoffs, so he was not available until last week. We were extremely thrilled with what we got out of him and I think that’s only going to get better. He obviously was playing on a field (instead of indoors) and going against long sticks, so that was a little bit new for him. He was a little rusty there, but I think four (goals) and one (assist)—and he also had a couple of really good shots that [Charlotte goalie Adam] Ghitelman made some nice saves on. So we think we’re going to get even more out of him, particularly once we get him with [John] Grant [Jr.] and [Zack] Greer and together with [Chris] Bocklet and [Eric] Law. I think we’ve got some pretty good options there.”
“Well, Hiken is—we haven’t activated him yet, but it’s a matter of time. This next week we will be able to get Jeremy Noble back, who played two games ago. Jeremy graduated last Saturday from the University of Denver, so he was unavailable. We’re hoping to have him back in the lineup this week. [Colin] Dunster gave us a nice outing—I believe it was his second game. He did a nice job. Cameron Flint continues to show well. We’ve got some depth and we’ve got some options. I think the real puzzle to fit is going to be who is coming out of the box as a midfielder and who is going to play at attack for us. Those are things we have to work through.”