Monday, Feb. 16, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.
After two hard-fought games, the Las Vegas Gladiators are greatly improved from last season's team and they feel great about their offense and defense.
With the daily affirmations covered, here is the reality, straight from Gladiators quarterback Clint Dolezel: "I'm not taking any (positives) out of it, not until I get a win."
That comes from the man who threw for 312 yards and eight touchdowns in Saturday's 62-55 loss to Los Angeles at the Thomas & Mack Center. With 7,862 fans in attendance for the home opener, the Gladiators displayed a vastly upgraded offense powered by Dolezel's effortless throws and a defense capable of doing enough to give the team a shot to win.
Yet late in the fourth quarter, Las Vegas' special teams failed for the second consecutive week, allowing the Avengers to take the lead with 1:53 left. The Gladiators' desperation drive failed when Los Angeles' Kevin Ingram batted down a Dolezel pass intended for Las Vegas' Terrill Shaw at the goal line as time expired, sending them on the road to Grand Rapids with an 0-2 mark -- exactly where they stood after two games last year.
"You've got to get a win," Gladiators coach Frank Haege said. "It's tough because everybody's down, you lose, but the guys see what you see -- they see that we're doing some real good things. We've just got to put it all together. We didn't do that."
The real good things included leading Los Angeles, one of the league's best teams, by a touchdown with less than seven minutes to play. The Gladiators, though, allowed a tying Avengers touchdown pass with 6:01 remaining and then gave up an onside kick -- a brutal special teams mistake similar to the errors that lost the season opener at Colorado.
"We worked on onsides the whole week," Las Vegas fullback/linebacker Frank Carter said. "We get up seven points (before Los Angeles tied the game), and everyone knows it's coming. An onside kick and they get it. That can really break your back."
Haege revamped the special teams last week, with Jeroid Johnson and T.J. Hill replacing Cornelius Bonner returning kicks. Haege made no excuses for the tide-turning miscue.
"We've got to get it right," Haege said. "I feel like we had the right guys in the right spots, but they just didn't do the right thing on that last one."
Still, two weeks into the season, the strongest area of last year's team has kept the Gladiators from two wins this year.
"The offense dominated the ballgame, the defense got us two or three stops, and we just didn't get it done on special teams," Shaw said.
Even in a 16-game season, time could start to grow thin for the Gladiators if they do not begin to win soon. Only the top eight teams in the 19-team league make the playoffs this year, down from 12 of 16 teams in 2003.
The schedule eases up this week in Grand Rapids, where the Rampage has lost by 18 and 20 points in the first two weeks. Dolezel and Shaw will be facing the team they helped to a victory in ArenaBowl XV in 2001. They are both eager to start making some better memories in Las Vegas after two rough defeats.
"They start wearing on you," Dolezel said. "You try to fight through them. They make for long weeks. After losses like that, you hope it goes by so you can hurry up to the next game and redeem yourself."
Haege said that this year's squad is better equipped to deal with the harsh start than last year's team.
"It's still 0-and-2, but I feel that the psyche of the team is so important," Haege said. "I feel that the guys feel like we've got a pretty good team."
Shaw summed up the team's optimism for the rest of the season and its stark truth of being winless at once.
"We definitely think we're good enough to go 14-and-2, and that isn't a bad record," Shaw said. "And it starts with the first win."
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