Somebody has put a hex on Colorado sports teams.
On Saturday, 15,554 watched at the Pepsi Center as another Denver team went down. This time it was the Colorado Mammoth, losing 15-13 to the Calgary Roughnecks in the first round of the National Lacrosse League playoffs.
This is the same Mammoth team that was once 5-0. But Colorado’s lone playoff game was a microcosm of its season.
A three-game losing streak followed the 5-0 start. Against Calgary, a 4-1 lead turned into a 4-4 tie.
The Mammoth followed the three-game slide with a 4-4 finish, just as the teams traded leads in the third quarter.
Then came the ugly finish. With Colorado up 12-10, Calgary took the lead three minutes later to go on a 5-0 run that ended with one second left on a meaningless Mammoth goal.
“It started out awesome and went downhill and went back uphill and then just kind of floated downwards at the end,” Mammoth transition player Nick Carlson said of the season — and the finale.
Colorado’s loss didn’t come without excuses — not that the team was making any. Leading goal scorer Dan Carey missed the final six games and Josh Sims, whom Carlson called the fastest player in the league, missed Saturday’s game with an ankle sprain.
But the losses didn’t seem to affect Colorado early. The Mammoth capitalized on several early mistakes by the Roughnecks in the first quarter.
“We outworked them in the first quarter, and that’s all it comes down to, is hard work,” Carlson said. “We’d get up and then we got lackadaisical and it went the other way.”
Calgary became the aggressors in the second quarter and took a one-goal lead at halftime.
The Mammoth responded in the third, taking a 10-9 lead on a breakaway goal by Jamie Shewchuk. Colorado appeared ready to end Denver’s doom when Jason Wulder scored to give the Mammoth a 12-10 lead.
Sixty-four seconds later, the Roughnecks tied the game — and slumped the shoulders of the Mammoth.
“We struggled all year, second and fourth quarters,” Carlson said. “For whatever reason, we’d come out strong first quarter and strong third quarter and then we’d kind of get back on our heels.” Calgary 1 5 3 6 — 15
Colorado 4 1 5 3 — 13
Scoring — Calgary: Wray (0-1-1), Hall (2-0-2), Seller (1-0-1), Toth (3-1-4), Moleski (0-1-1), Carnegie 1-0-1), Kelusky (2-5-7), Codd, (0-1-1), Sanderson (1-5-6), Malawsky (1-1-2), McBride (0-1-1), Ranger (1-1-2), Shattler (3-3-6). Colorado: Langtry (1-2-3), Carlson (1-2-3), Prout (2-4-6), Gajic (1-2-3), Gallant (0-1-1), Gill (2-2-4), Nash (0-1-1), Moss (1-0-1), Cornfield (1-1-2), Shewchuk (2-5-7), Wulder (2-3-5). Saves — Calgary, Dietrich 29; Colorado, Nash 37.
