Comebacks were the theme of a quiet, two-game weekend of National Lacrosse League action. The Colorado Mammoth and Philadelphia Wings were both able to earn victories in the first games of 2020 despite sputtering out the gate.

Vancouver jumped all over the Mammoth at the start, scoring the first four goals and six of the first eight, but Colorado fought back to tie the score at seven and eventually pull of a 13-9 victory.

Colorado scored five of the final six goals, going ahead for good at 9-8 when Ryan Lee scored less than three minutes into the fourth quarter.

"WHAT A LASER FROM LEEZER" pic.twitter.com/lO7aXIXkHr

— NLL (@NLL) January 5, 2020

“It’s a great character win by us to be able to get back to the game plan, and I think we dominated once we were able to do that,” Mammoth goaltender Dillon Ward told ColoradoMammoth.com. “It would’ve been easy for us to quit, but we kept our heads up and our message at halftime was to keep going.”

The Mammoth comeback was fueled largely by the team’s defense, with Dan Coates, Jordan Gilles and Joey Cupido each finding the back of the net. Cupido scored three times on a perfect 3-for-3 shooting night.

3 shots. 3 goals.

Joey. Cupido. Was. ON. pic.twitter.com/xsjVVpuLY5

— NLL (@NLL) January 5, 2020

“We didn’t panic,” Cupido told ColoradoMammoth.com. “We have a lot of veterans in that locker room, especially on the defensive side, and we knew that four goals weren’t enough to win a lacrosse game. So, we got back to what we do best and gave ourselves a chance by playing our game.”

The Riptide got out to an early 3-1 lead on the Wings in their second-ever home game, but Philadelphia responded with a monster second quarter to silence the early home-crowd vibes.

The Wings scored the last goal of the first quarter and then five straight to start the second quarter, taking a 10-6 advantage into the break. New York would then stage its own comeback, scoring five unanswered goals between the third quarter and fourth quarters, but Philadelphia ended the game on a three-goal run to earn a 15-12 victory.

“We worked on focusing on playing a full 60 minutes all week long,” Riptide head coach and general manager Regy Thorpe said, “and we were close tonight, if you take away the bad ten minutes of lacrosse in the second period.”

Kevin Crowley had seven points on a goal and six assists, with two of those assists coming in the final three-goal run. Brett Hickey scored the game-winning goal 9:35 into the fourth period.

Matt Rambo also had a strong performance with one goal and five assists, while Hickey and Josh Currier each notched a hat trick.

Noteworthy

The New England Black Wolves traded Dereck Downs to the Calgary Roughnecks in exchange for a pair of third round picks. Downs notched 23 points in 15 games during his rookie season last year but has only suited up in one game with the Pack this year … New York’s Tyson Gibson notched his first career hat trick, and three other Riptide players had their first career goals: Cody Radziewicz, John Wagner and Jake Fox … The Black Wolves earned a spot on SportsLogos.net’s best logos of the decade.

HATTTTSSSSSS

GIBSON WITH THE HEAT TO TIE IT UP AT 12.

pic.twitter.com/QSek18GY0v

— NLL (@NLL) January 5, 2020

Up Next
All times EST

Friday
Vancouver at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.

Saturday
Rochester at Toronto, 7 p.m.
Colorado at Halifax, 6 p.m.
Buffalo at Georgia, 7 p.m.

Sunday
Saskatchewan at San Diego, 4 p.m.