Monday, May 24, 2004 | 9:10 a.m.
LOS ANGELES -- Here lie the Las Vegas Gladiators, a season full of promise buried beneath a heaping mound of dirt they shoveled atop their own grave before vainly trying to shoot a hand to the surface.
Saturday night's 54-51 loss to Los Angeles at Staples Center ended the Gladiators' desperate push for the Arena Football League postseason, a playoff drive both gallant in its heart and overly ambitious in its call for six weeks of perfection after two months of mediocrity.
"When we were at 3-7, we were in a hell of a situation," Gladiators coach Frank Haege said.
Four consecutive wins, including a stunner against ArenaBowl favorite San Jose, temporarily restored the lofty dreams of an offseason marked by high-profile acquisitions such as quarterback Clint Dolezel and receivers Marcus Nash and Terrill Shaw. If only they could sneak into the playoffs, they felt, if only they could get a second chance to prove their preseason hype right.
But the defense that fueled the late-season resurgence could not get pressure on Avengers quarterback Tony Graziani (17-of-24, 229 yards, 6 TDs) and the special teams that haunted the Gladiators -- weakened by offseason trades after a strong showing last year -- gave them one last nightmare to take home for the summer.
At 7-8, the Gladiators are eliminated from postseason contention with one game left to play, a Sunday home date with Columbus. The best they can do is match the break-even record of last year's team that made the playoffs in the old 12-team format -- just eight teams get in this year.
This is guaranteed to be a long offseason for the Gladiators, who will undoubtedly look back and wince at giving away leads in the last 30 seconds against Colorado and Chicago and in the final five minutes in their earlier meeting with Los Angeles.
"Earlier on in the year, when we really could have helped ourselves as far as certain games, we lost some tough games," Nash said.
Combine those heartbreakers with wins against San Jose, New Orleans and Arizona, and the Gladiators either beat or led in the fourth quarter against the current top six teams in the AFL playoff picture.
"When you go home in the offseason and you see those guys in the playoffs and you know you're better than them, it's going to really kick your butt," Gladiators fullback/linebacker Frank Carter said.
Those what-if chances surfaced -- and disappeared -- again versus the Avengers (9-6), as any one of three failed onside kicks would have given Las Vegas a chance for the go-ahead score. Yet kicker Brian Gowins, who helped the Gladiators into the hole by missing a field goal to close the first half, did not hit the ball well on any of them.
"The onside kicks were horrendous," Haege said.
Los Angeles played a deep zone to contain Gladiators offensive specialist Marcus Nash, just as they did a year ago to stop former Gladiator Mike Horacek. Nash finished with nine catches for 75 yards and two touchdowns, which qualify as average numbers for a receiver who developed into one of the league's premier players in 2004.
Coco Blalock picked up for Nash in the intermediate passing game with 15 receptions for 163 yards and three touchdowns, including a 32-yard score to bring Las Vegas within three points with 17 seconds to play.
But like so many other times this season, the Gladiators battled to come tantalizingly close and went home with nothing, losing their sixth road game in eight tries.
"We're a good football team that didn't catch a lot of breaks this year," Dolezel said.
Injuries scrambled the team throughout the year, further complicating the process of acquainting a roster with only seven returning players.
After playing his second tight game with Las Vegas this season, Graziani said the team is vastly improved from its early season form.
"No doubt," Graziani said. "We were nervous for this game because we knew how much talent they had. It was just putting all the pieces together and they did that."
Haege began speaking to potential free agents a couple of weeks ago, working on re-signings and restructured contracts to massage the salary cap. The team is not likely to turn over as drastically as it did last offseason.
Haege, though, is still looking at Sunday's game as a chance to restore a little pride in a lost season before turning all attention to 2005.
"This last game still means a lot," Haege said.
Yet even the coach admits it will be a hard task to call up the same intensity for this one as for the five before it after such a deflating loss.
"There's definitely a lot of rejection," Haege said. "This one hurts because you're definitely out of the playoff race."
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