The Panther City Lacrosse Club dropped a close battle against the defending champion Colorado Mammoth, 14-12, on Friday evening at Ball Arena in Denver.
The team was led by 17-year veteran Callum Crawford who recorded six points (2G/4A). Crawford has now recorded at least six points in three of the four games he has played in in a Panther City uniform. Second-year forward Patrick Dodds recorded a season high four goals and Will Malcom recorded four points (1G/3A) on the evening.
Goalie Nick Damude also recorded a goal, in the same arena he scored in last year, and is the only goalie to score in the NLL last year and through 13 weeks this season. He recorded 35 saves on 49 shots.
Panther City returns home next weekend for their ‘Texas Forever’ game, which will feature the club’s first ever alternate jersey that is in honor of the state of Texas. The game will see Panther City square off against the Saskatchewan Rush on Saturday, March 4 at 7 p.m. in a Western Conference battle.
The ‘Texas Forever’ jerseys will then be signed by each individual player and are available to bid on to purchase here.
POST GAME QUOTES
HEAD COACH TRACEY KELUSKY
On what the determining factor was in tonight’s defeat…
“Detail. When you pay attention to detail, good things happen. When you go off script – again, I don’t mind us going off script because these guys are very good at what they do. They have to be able to play with instinct and do certain things, but I thought our commitment to paying attention to our game plan and our detail wasn’t there and that was the difference in my opinion.
On what he liked out of the team in the second half…
“Absolutely, I liked the fact that our power play starting getting on a run there. We were desperate. We have good punch back. I like the fact that there is no quit there. We were down. We could have easily folded our tents. Guys punched back, which is great. Again, it is like we take such a huge step last week with paying attention to detail and doing all the little things very, very well. Tonight, we do them half the time, instead of doing it consistently. That is the biggest challenge with a young group – finding consistency. That was the message going into the game and the challenge that was thrown out. Ultimately, we failed that.”
On the message heading into next week…
“Watch your film. Watch and there is a bunch of checked boxes we have from a principle base, defense, offense principles – all those things. There are things we have in the game plan. That game plan changes as to who we are playing. A lot of those principles are the same. I want these guys to go back and make sure they are understanding exactly what it is. When we commit to it, we are real good. Can we go off script? Yes, 100 percent, but it needs to be 80 percent what our coaching staff and our team philosophy is. That is the message. Ultimately that is the message. Biggest game of the year. Looking forward to getting in front of our fans for Texas Forever night and it is the biggest game of the year.”
