Bernhardt Scores Winner for Outlaws, Redwoods Come Back to Beat Whips

DENVER — If Saturday is a preview of the Premier Lacrosse League championship game in September, then there’s a lot to look forward to come postseason.

The game between the Denver Outlaws and New York Atlas had everything. A huge comeback, a respectable amount of chippiness, dramatic momentum swings and a stick-gripping scoreless stretch of more than six minutes in overtime.

Thanks to the game-winner from Jared Bernhardt, the Outlaws secured the top seed in the Western Conference and salvaged their homecoming weekend with a 13-12 victory at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.

“It could’ve been easy to fold it in,” Bernhardt said. “I think just speaks to the guys mentally being there to come back in the second half.”

Denver was looking at a 9-4 hole at halftime with the Atlas dominating possession, ground balls, shots and caused turnovers. Trevor Baptiste controlled the faceoff dot, Liam Entenmann was having a career day in the cage and Connor Shellenberger was putting on a clinic on the offensive end.

But in the third quarter, the Outlaws closed the deficit to 10-8 and out-shot their opponents 18-3. With 9:54 to go, Justin Anderson’s goal tied it 10-10. The Atlas got back on top roughly four minutes later when Shellenberger found Reid Bowering in from of the cage for a score, but Denver struck back in crowd-pleasing fashion.

Over the course of the game, long stick midfielder Jake Piseno had unleashed four two-point shots, three of which sailed wide and another which caught the shins of a closing defender.

But when Piseno slung another two-point shot with three minutes to go, this one found twine and fired up an already rowdy Denver crowd. The goal made him the third long pole with 10 or more points in a PLL season, joining Jarrod Neumann and Michael Ehrhardt.

While it was an excellent end to Denver’s homecoming and their regular season — the Outlaws are off for Week 11 in Boston — it was also a final homecoming for perhaps the city’s most famous lacrosse player. Eric Law was a star at Arapahoe High School, then went seven miles down the road to the University of Denver, where he was the centerpiece of two Final Four teams. After a long and prolific professional career that included multiple stints with different iterations of the Outlaws, the 34-year-old emotionally reflected on what he said could be his last time playing for the club — at least in Denver. The two games of Denver’s homecoming were his only appearances in the PLL this season.

“I’m biased but I think Denver sports fans are some of the best in the world,” Law said. “We support our teams through and through. It’s tough to put into words. Driving to the stadium today, I realized this is year 21 of coming and playing at this stadium. Competitive lacrosse and getting to play this kids game. How lucky am I to get to do that in front of these incredible fans, family and now my son. It’s special.”

Redwoods Come From Behind to Defeat Whipsnakes

For the first 47 minutes, 19 seconds, the California Redwoods trailed the Maryland Whipsnakes. But when Dylan Molloy scored his career-best fifth goal for the Redwoods with 41 seconds remaining, it was the cap to a 4-0 fourth quarter that sent the PLL’s westernmost team to a 14-13 victory.

“This team is a completely different team than we were at the start of the season mentally,” Redwoods coach Anthony Kelly said. “I think being a young team it takes some games under your belt to learn how to win, what it takes and to just believe you can do it. I’ve tried to instill that in these guys over and over again. At the beginning the year I went around the room multiple times and asked how many of these guys have a championship in this league? How many of you have a championship in the sixes event? How many of you won a national championship in college? How many of you guys are All-Americans?

“Every guy in this league is a rock-solid phenomenal player. When you get to this level, every game is a battle and you have to believe that you can win. There was a different swagger in the locker room today than there’s been in the past and I think guys understand that we’re here to win.”

Maryland built a 6-2 lead in the first quarter, powered by a pair of goals from long pole Jack McDonald and a chopping 2-pointer from Jake Bernhardt for his first score of the season. California closed the gap to 8-6 in the second quarter on goals from Molloy, Aidan Danenza, Josh Balcarcel and Chris Kavanagh. Maryland seemed to right the ship in the third quarter until the lopsided fourth shifted momentum to California.

With wins in Salt Lake and now in Denver, the Redwoods have a chance to make the playoffs out of the Western Conference. But they enter a must-win situation when they travel to face Boston at home.

“Taking us back to Utah, that was a playoff game,” Kelly said. “I think we knew that, so the mentality was that we’ve got to win. We checked that box and we’re here and tonight we had to win. We’re going to Boston next week and we’ve got to win there, too. If we’re fortunate enough to do that, we’ll have to win in the playoffs and we’ll be prepared.”