The Seals defeated the Mammoth 11-8 tonight in the final game of the regular season. San Diego enters the 2023 NLL Playoffs next week with the #1 seed in the Western Conference. With Colorado’s loss, they fall to the #4 seed, which means they will face San Diego again next week for the first round of the playoffs on Friday, May 5. The other end of the draw in the West will see the #2 Calgary Roughnecks take on #3 Panther City LC.
San Diego and Colorado went into Saturday night’s game with their season series tied 1-1. San Diego defeated Colorado in their first matchup of the season 13-9 in Colorado on Jan 28th, but the Mammoth came to San Diego and stole a 15-14 win over the Seals just 2 weeks ago. Each team had multiple runs to gain momentum, but it was the Mammoth led by Eli McLaughlin, who took the win at the end of the night of their last clash.
The first half of Saturday night’s game saw a dominating performance by the Seals offense, along with another solid performance from Seals goalie, Frank Scigliano. The Seals went into the half with a 7-3 lead, thanks to a hat trick from Austin Staats, and goals from Dobbie, Berg, Dickson, and O’Keefe.
In the first half, both Dickson and Dobbie reached 100 points in the season, joining Wes Berg who hit the same feat last week vs. Las Vegas and became the first Seals player in franchise history to do so. With 3 players all reaching 100 points in the season, its safe to say the Seals’ offense met the high expectations from lacrosse fans everywhere.
The second half saw a different story line as Colorado went on a 5 goal streak to bring the Seals lead down to 9-8 for a close finish. But with 2 goals from Shoemay in the last minute of the game, the Seals sealed the deal.
Playoffs
The 2023 NLL Playoffs begin next weekend, May 5-7. The league will be utilizing an eight-team playoff format, showcasing the top four teams from the East Conference and the top three from the West. A wild card makes up the eighth spot, being filled by the team with the best record between the fifth-place team in the East Conference and the fourth-place team in the West. With the regular season now complete, the wild card spot has been awarded to the Colorado Mammoth as the #4 seed in the West.
The San Diego Seals will play host for the first round on May 5th at 7pm PT vs. the Colorado Mammoth. It will be a single elimination match. Reserve your seats for this epic first-round Quarterfinal matchup HERE.
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