A youthful Colorado Mammoth team, showing progress behind rising star Jamie Shewchuk, stayed with the National Lacrosse League’s best team for almost three quarters Saturday night before falling to Washington 12-11 in front of 15,242 at the Pepsi Center.
After eight ties, 2009 NLL rookie of the year Rhys Duch fired a high rocket shot from the perimeter, scoring with 0.2 seconds left in the third quarter for 9-8 lead that the Stealth would keep to stay undefeated at 5-0.
It was the home debut of coach Steve Govett, the eighth- year general manager who fired Bob McMahon after an 0-2 start and took over behind the bench.
“We made mistakes mentally, but those are things we can fix,” Govett said. “We battled, we had a good game plan and we executed. That’s a good team, they make you make mistakes. We’re young, and we’ll grow. I still think we’re right there. Young teams are going to take a while to jell. You know what, there’s a lot of good things happening there.”
Shewchuk’s emergence — he leads the team with 13 goals and 14 assists — fits that bill.
“We call him the glue guy,” Govett said. “He cuts the middle, he does that successfully.”
On the down side, another essential player, defenseman John Gallant, the team captain, has a suspected broken hand.
Colorado (2-3) lost 18-of-27 faceoffs and went 0-for-5 on power plays, but Brian Langtry didn’t feel like power-play failure had a draining effect.
“They showed why they have the best penalty killing. They pack it in tight and make you take outside shots and they have a great goalie,” said Langtry, who shot 0-for-6. “We just didn’t bury the ball enough.”
Washington, which routed the Mammoth 17-8 three weeks ago, handled Colorado without two quality players, Paul Rabil and Eric Martin, who had a commitment with the U.S. national field lacrosse team.
Washington 1 5 3 3 — 12
Colorado 2 4 2 3 — 11
Wash — Zywicki (3 goals- 6 assists-9), Ratcliff 2-4-6, Wiles 2-2-4, Duch 2-3-5, Johnson 1-2-3, Sedgwick 2-1-3, Morgan 0-1-1, Beers 0-1-1.
Colo — Conway 3-1-4, Prossner 3-1-4,Shewchuk 2-2-4, Carlson 1-1-2, A. Gajic 1-0-1, Ethington 1-0-1, N. Gajic 0-4-4, Smith 0-1-1, Veltman 0-1-1, Catton 0-1-1, Leyshon 0-1-1, Langtry 0-1-1, Culp 0-1-1, I. Gajic 0-1-1. Goalies — W: Richards 36 saves; Leyshon 31 saves.
