From 2014 through 2018, the Dallas Rattlers were one of the best teams in Major League Lacrosse. The team advanced to the playoffs in four of the five seasons during that span. The one season the Rattlers didn’t go to the playoffs, they technically finished in a seven-way tie for first place, but missed the postseason due to a tiebreaker. The team finished in first place in the regular season twice and played in the championship game three times in that five-year period.

One of the biggest reasons for the Rattlers’ success was their chemistry. The locker room was renowned for its closeness. Over the course of several seasons, the team drafted players that were not only talented, but were also leaders, and in a league with what typically seemed like rosters with revolving doors, the Rattlers (whether they were in Rochester or Dallas) were able to keep their core intact.

The team drafted and retained three players (Joel White in 2011, Mike Manley in 2012 and Matt Dunn in 2016) that went on to earn MLL Defensive Player of the Year honors, not to mention an MLL Goalie of the Year (John Galloway in 2011), an MLL Offensive Player of the Year (Jordan Wolf in 2014) and a perennial all-star midfielder (John Ranagan in 2013).

Another all-star, Ned Crotty, was drafted by the franchise when it was originally in Chicago. He played with the team in Rochester and he was traded to the New York, where he played for two seasons before being traded back to the Rattlers.

“Everyone was such good friends,” Rattlers attackman Ryan McNamara said. “Everyone was fighting for more time to play with each other. And because we were such good friends, we were able to say, ‘That was a dumb play,’ and get in each other’s faces, and everyone knew that we were still friends after the game.”

Much of that talent and leadership, however, is no longer on the team. The aforementioned core departed MLL for the Premier Lacrosse League, leaving a young and inexperienced roster to rebuild new chemistry in Dallas. It is a challenge, but one the next group of leaders welcomes.

“It’s a little bit weird,” said midfielder Brian Kormondy, who was selected by the team in the 2018 supplemental draft. “It’s the same mentality we’ve always had. If you’re not a good guy, it doesn’t matter what kind of lacrosse player you are. We keep the best guys, the guys that want to be tight-knit and want to work together, and we’ll get back to how the locker room was very soon.”

“We had a talk after the game about us building a culture. It won’t be the exact same as it was, and it shouldn’t be,” added McNamara, a sixth-round draft pick by the Rattlers in 2017. “It’s tough, but exciting at the same time. Especially the Rattlers, we’ve always taken pride in having off-field relationships. It’s definitely weird being the veteran even though I’ve only been in the league a year and a half.”

Going into the 2019 MLL season, the Rattlers had plenty of openings for playing time. Dallas went into the season without its starting goalie and its backup goalie. The team was without seven defenders, three of which were all-stars. The Rattlers also lost their top two scorers and five of their top eight scorers from the 2018 season.

With so many new and inexperienced players, coach Bill Warder has a challenging task even putting together a lineup.

“Whether its Bryce Wasserman or Jake Pulver or Zack Greer, they’re focusing on improving as an individual,” he said. “The coach’s job is to collect all the information, observe all the personalities and observe how the pieces fit together. Who is the dodger? Who is the feeder? Who is the best defender? Who’s our ground ball guy? Who’s our spark plug? It’s establishing roles. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube. They all make a cube. Can you get the colors on the same side? It’s a puzzle. It’s getting the personalities to complement each other. You can’t have six dodgers if you don’t have any finishers. You have to find complementary pieces. We’re just getting them all aligned.”

The early results were not great. The Rattlers hosted the Bayhawks in the first game of the season and led 7-5 at halftime, but Chesapeake outscored them 4-1 in the third quarter and 9-4 in the second half. Dallas lost 14-11.

Game two, another home game, started with the Boston Cannons jumping out to a 9-0 lead into the second quarter. The Rattlers would fight back and score 10 goals, but it wasn’t enough in a 16-10 defeat.

Still, the players are optimistic.

“Obviously, we would have much rather have won, but we have to look at it as learning opportunities,” McNamara said. “We’re getting guys experience, so they’re no longer going to be rookies four or five games into the season. Hopefully, guys are able to feel comfortable and take on that leadership role in our culture and help build the culture together. It’s got to be the whole team.”

Kormondy said a lot of effort is going into the players getting to know each other off the field to help recreate the famous Rattlers locker room.

“Everybody is getting into town, and we’re hanging out together in the hotel, not sitting by ourselves in our room watching TV,” he said. “We’re going out to dinner after practice and hanging out between pregame practice and the game. We get to go out in every city and bond. You get the feeling you’re back in college hanging out with teammates you love. We’re traveling the country and building a brotherhood that way.”

While there aren’t too many players with more than a couple of seasons with the team on the roster, they do have the coaching staff of Warder and assistant coaches Jeremy Boltus and Jacques Monte. Warder served as a Rattlers assistant for seven seasons prior to becoming the team’s head coach before the 2018 season. Boltus played with the Rattlers from 2015 through 2017 and became an assistant coach after his retirement. Monte also was a Rattlers assistant for several years under former head coach Tim Soudan.

Along with Rich Moses, who joined the coaching staff before the 2018 season, the players have leaders on the coaching staff that have been a part of successful Rattlers teams from the past.

“I was talking to Coach Monte over the last couple days, and I think we’re very confident in the way we’ve drafted players,” Warder said. “You go down our lineup, and you look at guys like [long pole] Eli Salama, who just won a Champion’s Cup [in the National Lacrosse League] and was a player of the year in Division III [at RIT], and this is his second MLL game. From [rookies] Craig Chick to Luke Wittenberg to Jake Seau, a lot of those guys have great accolades. They just need experience. They just have to play.”

McNamara and Kormondy both said the defense was a positive in the first two games of the season, and McNamara said goalie Christian Carson-Banister played well.

Despite the losses, Kormondy said he believes the coaching staff is the most enjoyable he’s played for, crediting them for the amount of feedback they’ve given and for “running the organization the way it should be done.”

He also said the Rattlers need to make sure they continue to work and don’t let the early losses bring them down too much.

“We play these teams three to four times in a season,” Kormondy said. “We beat the Outlaws twice in the regular season [in 2018] and lost to them in the championship game. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to start off a little slow.”

Like his players, Warder is looking beyond the early results and thinking about the comparisons to Rattlers teams of the past.

“We were fortunate when we drafted John Galloway and Joel White and Mike Manley and Ned Crotty and John Ranagan. We drafted them all young and held them for the better part of six, seven, eight, nine years. It was awesome. They were tremendous leaders,” he said. “We’re excited about the guys we have. I was talking to Tim Soudan and reflecting on that young team we had, and this team has the makings of that. These guys are young with accolades, but they have to develop a team. We’re confident we can do it with these guys. You have to hit the reset button to do it.”