'Utah brought the juice': Hometown crowd helps PLL's Archers clinch west title

HERRIMAN — After gutting through an overtime win Friday night without their top player and team captain Tom Schreiber, the Utah Archers, once again, faced an uphill climb in Saturday's regular-season Premier Lacrosse League finale when Schreiber was ruled out with a clavicular injury.

Luckily, the Archers had a man-up advantage in a must-win match against the Denver Outlaws: the 5,000-plus crowd at Zions Bank Stadium.

Connor Fields had three goals and two assists, and Tre Leclaire added three 1-point goals and a 2-pointer as the Archers used the host crowd to their advantage to surge past the Outlaws 13-9 on the west end of the Salt Lake Valley.

"It's easy to be energized when you have the best crowd in, I don't know, all of lacrosse," said Archers midfielder Ryan Ambler, who was named captain in Schreiber's absence. "Literally, that was incredible."

Added Leclaire: "Utah brought the juice this weekend for us, and we used that to our advantage. And the other thing was Tom going down yesterday; that was our motivation. ... We wanted to win for him. He got injured yesterday, and he wasn't worried about himself. He was worried about us. … We wanted to do it for him."

With the win, the defending league champion Archers (6-4) clinched the top spot in the Western Conference and the No. 4 seed overall, nearly three weeks off with a first-round bye, and a spot in the league semifinals Sept. 7 in Long Island, New York.

Utah started hot, jumping out to a 3-0 run fueled by the sellout home crowd. But Denver came back, outscoring the Archers 4-1 in the second quarter and taking a 6-4 lead at halftime on Justin Anderson's goal.

But Utah erupted out of the break, flipping the momentum with a 7-0 avalanche against the Colorado side that included the first professional goal by Park City native and Archers rookie Beau Pederson.

"I was telling him to shoot all week," Leclaire said of the former two-time All-American short-stick defensive midfielder who scored with a left-handed rip. "For him to hit that, I was so pumped. That was a juice goal for us. That brought the whole crowd in; it was a turning point for us."

Fields scored two of his three goals in the third quarter to lift Utah to an 11-7 advantage with one quarter remaining.

With each passing goal — from Fields to Leclaire to Pederson to fellow rookie Mason Woodward — the Archers felt the momentum of the state that has been emblazoned on their jerseys all year.

"We came away just saying, this place is awesome," Utah coach Chris Bates said. "Honestly, to feel that run and feel the fans — they get the game. They know this was a big game, and Tre had a big goal, Beau had a goal, and the place was going nuts. You could feel it.

"They appreciated our effort. We came out of halftime knowing we were down two, and you could feel the place behind you. We're clearly the Utah Archers now. We're happy as hell to win two games and win the Western Conference, but to connect with this city and this lacrosse community, you can't ask for anything else. We're fired up about it."

Graham Bundy Jr. pulled the Outlaws within 12-9 with a goal from beyond the 2-point arc with 5:56 remaining.

But Brett Dobson made 16 saves, and the Archers held former Duke star Brennan O'Neill scoreless for the Outlaws (5-5) before Dyson Williams finished off the scoring with just over two minutes remaining and off celebrations among the partial crowd.

"There was a lot on the line … and the crowd was awesome," said Outlaws midfielder Justin Anderson, a Las Vegas native with roots in the Salt Lake area whose team will open the PLL playoffs Sept. 2 against the Maryland Whipsnakes in Foxborough, Massachusetts. "It's a great atmosphere here; I've got a lot of family that lives here. It's amazing to play here and to play in front of all these fans with lacrosse really growing here out west."

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