Henry Raschke, Santa Barbara Blacktips (Chaser/ Seeker)
The Blacktips took the Western Region by storm this year, going from a team formed in the fall to a team that placed seventh at Regionals. Despite their relative inexperience (with the exception of team founder and captain Evan Bell), the Blacktips are able to hang with all but the elite teams in the region thanks mainly to a ton of athleticism on the roster. One of those athletic players who has helped the Blacktips to get off to such a quick start is Henry Raschke.
While there are stronger players and faster players on his own team, Henry possesses a good combination of the two. He is faster than he is strong, but his strength is nothing to sneer at. He excels on breakaways, where that combination of good speed and strength allows him to convert a large majority of his attempts into scores. While larger, more physical players can take him down, he is fast enough that it is usually difficult for them to get a good enough hold on him to do so. On defense, while he won’t take too many people to the ground, he usually meets them pretty early on in their attack and impedes their progress, forcing them to pass early, which usually plays right into the hands of the Blacktips’ beaters. Henry can hold his ground against all but the most physical of opposing chasers and keepers on defense, and his speed makes it difficult to go around him.
Henry’s most outstanding trait, however, is his agility. I have seen few players who have such good body control and can change direction so quickly. At Western Regionals, we played the Blacktips in bracket play, and they had numerous breakaways where I found myself facing a Blacktips chaser barreling down the pitch alone. While I was able to take down his faster and stronger teammates repeatedly, I struggled in stopping Henry, because he would execute a series of rapid cuts and upper body movements that made it very difficult to get a solid hold on him, which allowed him to get close enough to the hoops to unleash his unfailingly accurate close range shot. “Shifty” and “slippery” are two terms that describe Henry almost perfectly on the pitch.
At seeker, Henry’s combination of good speed and strength with incredible agility make him very dangerous. He has a good reach, and as his feet are constantly moving and shifting, many snitches have difficulty fending him off for extended periods of time. While his inexperience does sometimes show at seeker, the Blacktips use him as a situational seeker, which tends to minimize his weaknesses that more experienced snitches would exploit. As he gains experience, those weaknesses will begin to disappear.
The fact that Henry already possesses formidable physical tools makes it scary to think what he could be capable of as he becomes more experienced, and if he were to add some more strength to his repertoire, which I could see happening. This guy has a very bright future ahead of him on the pitch.
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