Bob Chavez

Sunday February 2nd, 2020

Austin Staats made his return to San Diego for his first game since injuring his knee last April. (Photo: Mike McGinnis)

Week 10 of the National Lacrosse League was the week of surprises.

Friday night gave us a pair of unexpectedly close games with Georgia beating Philadelphia by 1 goal and Buffalo needing overtime to defeat Rochester. And then there was Halifax losing its first game, to Toronto.

On Saturday, the surprises continued. It started with Vancouver topping New England by 4 goals and to cap it all off, the San Diego Seals put up 17 goals against one of the NLL’s top defensive units in a 17-10 win over the Colorado Mammoth.

Here’s a recap of Saturday night:

San Diego 17, Colorado 10 (box score)

In the NLL’s first game in Las Vegas that drew 4,821 to Orleans Arena, the Seals finally had a full deck on offense with the return of Austin Staats, last year’s Rookie of the Year who was playing in his first game since an injury last April. And what a difference he made for the Seals, who also have second-year forward Connor Fields in the lineup after he missed 14 games last season with injury.

After Zack Greer opened the scoring for San Diego, the Mammoth took a 3-1 lead with goals from Dylan Kinnear, Eli McLaughlin and Joey Cupido, but then San Diego came to life. The Seals scored 7 goals in the second quarter, 3 from Casey Jackson and 2 more from Greer for an 8-6 halftime lead. The highlight, though, had to be Brodie Merrill's full-field empty-net goal as the horn sounded. In the final seconds of the second quarter, Colorado's Eli McLaughlin drove in from the corner and his shot was kicked aside by San Diego goalie Nick Damude. The ball squirted into the corner, where Merrill tracked it down, scooped and turned to unload a long shot with just a bit of touch. Two bounces later, the ball was in top shelf and after a review, the goal was confirmed.

Buzzer beater from 200 feet away 😱@SealsLax @NLL pic.twitter.com/Q3xqAQzI3x — Bleacher Report Live (@brlive) February 2, 2020

San Diego then opened the third with 5 straight goals, 2 of them from Wes Berg, and the lead was 12-6 before Brett Craig closed the scoring in the third and Kinnear scored his second for Colorado to make it a 12-8 San Diego lead.

But another 3-goal run made it 15-8 midway through the fourth and the remainder of the game was a formality.

Staats had 1 goal and 3 assists for the Seals (3-5) and Fields had a goal and 5 assists. And their presence opened opportunities for teammates like Jackson, who scored 5 goals and Greer, who finished with 3. Rookie goalie Nick Damude made 32 saves, 12 in the fourth quarter.

For Colorado (4-7), McLaughlin had 3 goals and 2 assists and Kinnear had 2 goals. Dillon Ward made 31 saves before making way for Tyler Carlson with just more than 8 minutes left. Carlson made 5 saves on 7 shots.

Vancouver 10, New England 6 (box score)

After a 4-0 start, the Black Wolves suddenly are 4-2 after losing their second straight. The first loss came in overtime but against Vancouver, none was needed in front of 4,801 at Mohegan Sun.

The Warriors led 3-1 after 1 quarter and 4-2 at the half with 2 of those goals coming from Keegan Bal. The Warriors got a third goal from Bal and one from Mitch Jones in the third to open a 6-2 lead while New England was scoreless on 14 shots.

The offense for both finally woke up in the fourth but for New England it was too little, too late. The Warriors had a 9-3 lead before the Black Wolves scored 3 of the game’s final 4 goals in the final 6 minutes of the game.

Eric Penney was the game’s first star, making 44 saves to help the Warriors (3-4) win their second straight. Jones and Bal each scored 3 goals and Riley Loewen had 2 goals and 2 assists while Resetarits scored 3 goals for New England.