Mike Law has heard all the jokes about his last name and his future occupation, a law career that is ready to blossom after Saturday’s commencement ceremonies at the University of Denver law school.
While Law’s classmates will celebrate their emergence from a three-year, sleep-deprived grind of case study and tort memorization, Law will discard his cap and gown for elbow pads and rib guards. At 7 p.m., Law and his Denver Outlaws teammates will make their season debut against the San Francisco Dragons at Invesco Field at Mile High.
“It’s going to be a good day, a lot of fun,” Law said. “I’m looking forward to playing in front of our crowd.”
Outlaws fans set several attendance records in 2006, their inaugural season, including largest season opener (13,167) and season average (11,634, more than double the next-closest team, Boston’s 5,902).
A fan favorite, Law is the poster child for lacrosse growth in Colorado.
After joining friends trying out for the Regis High School team, he developed into DU’s first Division I All-American, then earned a place in the pro game, indoor with the Colorado Mammoth and outdoor with the Outlaws of Major League Lacrosse.
Law is also the face of the Outlaws on billboards all around town and has a burgeoning modeling career.
He ranked third among the Outlaws last season in scoring with 39 points in 11 games, including 31 goals, three 2-point goals and five assists. His .333 shooting percentage was the best among MLL midfielders.
While helping Denver win the Western Conference, Law was part of a high-scoring midfield, along with Jeff Sonke, Josh Sims and Brian Langtry.
Sonke scored 40 points in 11 games, including eight 2-point goals. Sims and Langtry scored 37 points each, with Sims scoring 19 goals and Langtry registering 18 assists.
“Our new coach plays into our run-and-gun style,” Law said of Jim Beardmore. “Having a run-and-gun team when you don’t practice and play a lot can really hurt other teams. We’ll use the altitude at home, and our speed and size, and shooting abilities from the midfield to draw the defense and give off to the attackmen.”
Matt Brown, another former Pioneer, led the Outlaws last season with 38 goals from the attack position.
Brown’s 46 points ranked fourth in the MLL, and his .514 shooting percentage was best in the league.
The only major personnel change from last season is at faceoff, where another ex-DU player, Geoff Snider, takes over for Chris Cercy.
“The one area we were successful during the season that we weren’t successful in the finals was winning the faceoff and being offensive from the midfield,” said Sims of Denver’s 23-12 title game loss to the Philadelphia Barrage. “The faceoff is a crucial component of the game.”
Footnotes
Canada trounced the United States 18-5 on Wednesday to earn a bye in today’s World Indoor Lacrosse quarterfinals in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Americans, who defeated Australia 19-9 and Ireland 20-0 this week, meet Scotland today. The bronze- and gold-medal matches will be played Sunday. … Rochester defeated Arizona 13-11 in the NLL championship game on the strength of three goals and five assists by John Grant Jr.
