With each drop to his knees and shoulder deflection, Gee Nash kept a long-held Colorado Mammoth dream alive – a place in the Champion’s Cup, the National Lacrosse League title game.
Nash’s saves on point-blank shots in the fourth quarter Saturday at the Pepsi Center helped Colorado to a 13-12 victory over the Arizona Sting and to its first berth in the Champion’s Cup on May 13. The Mammoth will play at Buffalo, which beat Rochester 15-10 late Saturday to win the Eastern Division.
“Sometimes your adrenaline gets going and you feel a lot more comfortable in the net,” Nash said. “That’s the way it felt in the fourth quarter. It was a tremendous effort by all the guys. I’m so happy for them to get this win.”
The Mammoth was favored for a berth in the Cup final in 2004 after posting an NLL-best 13-3 record, but was bounced from the playoffs by Calgary.
“We deserve this,” Colorado’s Nick Carlson said. “This team is more of a team than the last few years. We are so tight together. We work for each other.”
With Gary Gait, a coach of the year candidate displaying his usually unflappable demeanor, his Mammoth players recovered from a three-goal flurry by Arizona’s Craig Conn that left Colorado trailing 10-9.
“We came out after halftime very motivated,” said Josh Sims, one of five holdovers from the 2003 inaugural Mammoth team. “To go down by a goal after having a two-goal lead can be devastating, but we came back.”
On an afternoon when hot goal scorers Gavin Prout and Brian Langtry combined for only three goals, Carlson came through with crucial plays. He tied it 10-10, netted the game- winner, and intercepted a pass with 3.9 seconds left.
Motivated by what he called the “death stare” of assistant coach Ward Sanderson, Carlson was determined to make a second-half impact.
“I had to step it up,” he said. “I owed the team two goals, at least.”
He scored the first after stealing the ball from former University of Denver star Matt Brown and racing around defender Peter Lough.
After Dan Stroup put Colorado ahead 11-10 with a catch- and-shoot off a rebound, Arizona’s Scott Self intercepted a pass and ran in alone on Nash, beating him low for an 11-11 tie.
Carlson responded with a sprint to the net off an outlet pass from Nash for a 12-11 lead early in the fourth quarter. Off a feed from a falling Chris Gill, rookie Dan Carey absorbed a shove in the slot and made it 13-11 with 10:36 remaining.
Except for Dan Dawson’s goal from point-blank range with 6:43 remaining, Nash was impenetrable the rest of the way.
During one span, he held up against a Sting power play. In another, Arizona coach Bob Hamley pulled goalkeeper Rob Blasdell for an extra attacker and the Sting peppered the net, gaining reset 30-second shot clocks. Still, Nash turned away shots, making 19 of his 48 saves during the final quarter.
“We outshot them and we had good, good looks in the fourth quarter,” Hamley said. “Gee was the difference.”
Arizona 3 4 4 1 – 12
Colorado 4 5 2 2 – 13
Arizona – Conn 4 goals-2 assists-6 points, Veltman 2-0-2, Plunkett 1-2-3, Dawson 1-2-3, Brown 1-0-1, Cochrane 1-0-1, Self 1-0-1, Seller 1-0-1, Malawsky 0-2-2, McKay 0-2-2, Maddalena 0-1-1, Guindon 0-1-1, Blasdell 0-1-1.
Colorado – Prout 1-5-6, Carlson 2-2-4, Jalbert 0-4-4, Langtry 2-1-3, Gill 2-1-3, Carey 2-0-2, Burkholder 2-0-2, Sims 1-1-2, Stroup 1-1-2, Catton 0-2-2, Nash 0-1-1, Prepchuk 0-1-1.
Goalkeepers – Arizona, Blasdell 52 shots, 39 saves; Colorado, Nash 60-48.
A – 12,537.
