White socks, dirty socks and crew socks rained down on midfielder Jeff Sonke in celebration of his sock trick, a six-goal effort that boosted the Denver Outlaws on Saturday night.
Before 11,257 at Invesco Field at Mile High, the Outlaws prevailed in their season debut, 21-14, over the San Francisco Dragons.
Sonke, who scored the first goal in Outlaws’ Major League Lacrosse history in the 2006 debut, netted the third and fourth goals of the game to erase a 1-1 tie and give Denver the lead for good.
“Sometimes when you’ve got a hot stick, you’ve got to keep shooting,” Sonke said. “But the reason for my success is my teammates moving the ball around.”
Attackman Matt Brown, the squad’s 2006 leader in goals, followed with a quick cross-crease pass from newcomer Chris Unterstein, and midfielder Josh Sims unleashed his first two-point goal of the season from the new 16-yard distance for a 6-1 lead.
Denver led by as much as 10-4 before a drought left them ahead 11-7 at halftime.
“We had one lull and I take full responsibility for that,” first-year coach Jim Beardmore said. “I shifted into a 10-man ride and it cost us momentum. It’s a strategy that can work, but we need to practice it more and use it at the right time.”
Minus the strategy and after Sonke and Sims discussed the need to involve attackman Matt Hanna, the Outlaws opened the third quarter with a 5-1 run, including consecutive goals by Hanna.
“Hanna had a great night,” Sonke said. “He buried all his shots.”
The Regis High lacrosse coach was a perfect 3-for-3 and showed an increased touch compared to last season, when he had five goals in six games.
Other keys were the faceoff dominance of Geoff Snider, the goaltending of Trevor Tierney and Lee Zink’s defensive effort on Dragons star Ryan Powell. The reigning MLL most valuable player, who scored nine goals in one game at Denver last season, was held to three goals and four assists.
“We couldn’t find any weaknesses. It was frustrating,” Powell said. “And they are so talented in the midfield that you can’t key on one guy. They go from Sonke to Sims to (Mike) Law to (Brian) Langtry. And now they have a couple young guys helping out, too, so they are great offensively.”
Another factor was preparation. While the Dragons have only seen each other in training camp, the Outlaws played an exhibition game against Los Angeles last weekend.
“It was a good outing against a quality ball club,” Beardmore said. “I’m real happy we scored 21 goals, and I’d like to keep our opponent closer to 10 goals than 14, but it was a good outing. … I thought we could have closed the door but that is really hard to do.”
San Francisco 4 3 4 3 – 14
Denver 7 4 6 4 – 21
Scoring (goals-assists) – San Francisco, Powell 3-4; Rosyski 2-0; Martin 1-0; Reppert 1-0; Zummo 1-0; Rotelli 1-0; Treubig 1-0; Yevoli 1-0; Watkins 0-1. Colorado, Sonke 6-0; Hanna 3-0; Sims 2-1; Brown 2-0; Lochte 2-0; Law 2-0; Mundorf 1-1; Erwin 1-1; Kenney 1-0; Cittadino 0-1; Langtry 0-1; Unterstein 0-1.
2-pointers – Martin, Powell, Rotelli; Sims.
Goalies – Vallone, S.F., 60 minutes, 38 shots-18 saves; Tierney, Colo., 60:00, 25-14.
