San Diego vs. Colorado Game Preview
February 14, 2020 - National Lacrosse League (NLL)
San Diego Seals News Release
The San Diego Seals hit the road to face the Colorado Mammoth on Saturday night at Pepsi Center at 6:30 PM PT. This will be the second and final matchup between the two clubs for the 2019-20 regular season. Last time out, the Seals handed the Mammoth a 17-10 loss in Las Vegas to remain undefeated all-time against the Western Divisional foe (4-0).
"We want to build off of the effort that we had in Vegas," said general manager and head coach Patrick Merrill. "We know that they are a very well coached team. They're going to make adjustments and be prepared for us this weekend. [The Mammoth] are always tough to beat in Denver, but hopefully we used the bye weekend wisely and our guys will be prepared to win another battle on Saturday night."
The team spent one of the final bye weeks of the season recovering both mentally and physically for the upcoming stretch. San Diego will play ten games in eleven weeks to round out the 2020 campaign.
"You have to use your bye weeks for rest and recovery," continued Merrill. "That's why they're built into the schedule. We had a couple guys who were coming off long-term injuries, and a couple guys with some bumps and bruises, so we used this week to get healthy, rest, recover and enjoy a mental break from the game. We also used our time to get better. Over the past five or six days, our strength coach has been ramping things up and getting them ready to compete again. We've also made adjustments offensively and defensively to be better than we were last game."
On top of a divisional win, the Seals game in Las Vegas featured the return of star-forward Austin Staats. This was Staats' first game back since the 2019 NLL Rookie of the Year suffered a season-ending knee injury in April of last year. Staats finished with one goal and four points in his 2020 NLL debut.
"It was a long time coming," said Staats. "I went from tearing everything in my knee to scoring my first goal 10 months later. Scoring that first one was emotional for me, but I'm just happy to be back out there playing lacrosse with my friends. I hope I can continue to put balls in the back of the net and help our team get some wins. This team is about character, we started off slow and lost a couple, but I think we've found our swagger and our gel, and we're going to stack some wins here together and hopefully make a playoff push."
All time, the Seals have outscored the Mammoth 59-39, including 11 power play goals (69%). Forwards Casey Jackson and Austin Staats each average 5 points per game, while the Seals goaltending and defense has held the Mammoth to less than 10 goals per game.
Fans will be able to watch Saturday's game on B/R Live. B/R Live - Turner's live sports streaming service - will stream all San Diego Seals games throughout the 2019-20 season.
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