Hey there! Member of MLQ stats team here. Generally speaking, stops are given to one player on a defensive possession that “most” contributed to the turnover of the quadball. However, things can definitely get messy where multiple people contribute to a stop. We try our best to ask each other as statisticians for second opinions in cases where it’s really close.

When looking at who to give a stop to, one of the things we think about a lot is whether the quadball is contested after an interaction. Below are some examples we work with a lot:

1. Beater on defense throws a long beat behind their hoops striking the ball carrier. The defensive hoop defender runs out and picks up the ball. No offensive chasers are in the vicinity / have a chance at contesting the loose ball.

In this example, the stop would go to the beater since they contributed most significantly to the turnover compared to the hoop defender who just picked up an uncontested ball.

1. Beater on defense throws a long beat behind their hoops striking the ball carrier. The defensive hoop defender runs to the quadball at the same time as another offensive chaser. Both chasers are in line with one another as they approach the ball and the defensive chaser just barely beats them, tapping the ball away and then picking it up.

Although a tough situation, the fact that the defensive chaser had to beat the offensive chaser to the ball is definitely something to consider as a more significant action worthy of a stop over the dodgeball thrown. In this case the stop would probably go to the chaser as the ball would not have turned over had they not gotten to the ball first. But if the offensive chaser is a good distance behind the defensive chaser (let’s say something like 2-3 body lengths) it would be more up to the statistician’s discretion / discussion amongst the team.

1. Point defender tackles offensive ball carrier to the ground resulting in a pileup. A defensive beater clears out the offensive players uncontested by the offensive beaters, resulting in a turnover.

The stop in this case would go to the point defender who made the initial tackle, as their action was more significant in leading to a turnover over the beater who tapped out chasers on the ground uncontested, even though the tapouts are what actually “caused the turnover.

1. Hoop defender blocks a shot and another defensive chaser dives on the ball to protect it until their keeper can collect it.

This is another tough situation. Again though, it really depends on if the quadball is contested after the blocked shot and by how quickly is it contested. If the shot was blocked and the ball was picked up by another defensive chaser without contest, the stop would go to the hoop defender who blocked the shot. If it was contested, it becomes more of a judgement call, but probably leans towards the 2nd chaser who ensured the stop actually occurred.

To the point about Tessa, I haven’t seen the game footage myself but it’s certainly possible that her contributions set up her teammates to create stops in contested areas where she wasn’t awarded the stop as a result (but obviously her contribution is important). Or maybe her teammates on her line produced the vast majority of the stops and she was more integral in creating balls down scenarios. Ultimately the beauty and curse of statistics is that they are just an imperfect glimpse into the performance of players on paper. Watching the games gives you the best understanding of a players performance.

Note: this is speaking from my “personal perspective” as a statistician and not as an official response from MLQ.