On a night of celebration, commemorating the skills of the best players in Major League Lacrosse, the growth of the sport at the youth level and the rise in fan interest, the West All-Stars set an MLL scoring record in a 31-15 pounding of the East.
Dozens in the Invesco Field at Mile High crowd of 10,124 pulled off their socks and threw them on the field in recognition of the sock trick by Denver Outlaws attackman Ryan Powell, for the six goals he netted to win MVP honors and a $1,500 check.
“I’m honored,” Powell said. “I’m finally playing my game, scoring inside.”
Powell and the Outlaws are coming off their lowest output in the team’s three-year history, a 16-6 loss to Los Angeles that enabled the Riptide to draw within a half-game of Denver (6-3).
“I’m going to tell Ryan to make Saturday an All-Star Game too,” Outlaws coach Brian Reese said of an upcoming contest in San Francisco.
Reese, the coach of the West, didn’t expect such an offensive show, including four two-point goals.
“We were probably the underdogs, but we started off well defensively, especially getting ground balls, and we had great passing,” Reese said.
The West, drawing players from four teams compared to the six-team East, ran off to a 6-1 first-quarter lead. Minus injured all-stars Mikey Powell, John Grant Jr. and Kyle Dixon, the East responded but trailed 12-6 at halftime.
In an offensive explosion fueled by a series of winning faceoffs by Anthony Kelly, the West scored four goals in a 1-minute, 43-second span to spark a 10-goal third quarter, and the rout was on.
Among the many highlights: a diving behind-the-back pass by Denver’s Brian Langtry to Brendan Mundorf, who caught it as he cut through the slot and fired in a behind-the-back shot.
“It is really fun to play with the best players,” Langtry said. “You don’t really know how great they are until you are with them.”
It was the seventh year of the game in the eight-year history of a league, co-founded by Body by Jake’s Jake Steinfeld, who touted the appeal of scoring, speed and hitting by players who hold down regular jobs all week and play for a few thousand dollars and the love of the game.
ESPN2, which showed the game live in another sign of increased interest, gathered a number of highlights from the halftime contests.
The creative freestyle competition was won by the Riptide’s Chazz Woodson, who jumped over two children, hung in the air and shot a behind-the-back shot into the net.
Recent Duke graduate Matt Danowski was also impressive, throwing his stick in the air, taking his shirt off, catching the stick on the run and scoring on a leaping wraparound shot.
The fastest shot contest was won by Kelly with consecutive blasts at 109 mph, tying the MLL record held by David Evans. Langtry, the defending champion, was eliminated by a 101 mph shot.
