Monday, March 7, 2005 | 9:17 a.m.
The loneliest number that you'll ever see, it turns out, is actually two. It certainly is for Gladiators coach Ron James after his decision not to go for a two-point conversion after Las Vegas' final score combined with an Austin touchdown at the buzzer to create a distressing 42-41 loss Friday night at the Thomas & Mack Center that could make the road to playoffs much harder than it needs to be.
Las Vegas never trailed in the first three quarters, but when 5-foot-8 Austin receiver Kevin Nickerson outjumped two Gladiators for a 14-yard touchdown pass from John Fitzgerald as time expired, James' choice not to try for two while ahead 41-36 with less than two minutes left took center stage under the floodlights.
Team owner Jim Ferraro fumed in the hallway outside the Gladiators locker room before James came out to discuss his call with reporters. James stopped short of apologizing for the unusual decision not to try to extend the lead to seven points, saying he intended to run down the clock with the kicking unit set up before calling timeout.
Apparently, though, James was the only key person who knew the plan. Both kicker Mark Lewis and holder Craig Whelihan said they did not know that James wanted a timeout and James could not attract the officials' attention before Lewis missed the extra point try.
"We weren't going to call timeout, but we definitely wanted to run the clock down," Whelihan said. "As far as I was concerned, we were kicking away."
James also said he thought Las Vegas (3-3) would get another offensive possession in the game and that the coaches' headsets went out during the extra point try. He ultimately accepted the blame for not getting the timeout.
"It's not the kicker's responsibility," James said. "It's my responsibility to call timeout."
Long snapper Lucas Yarnell also was not aware of the timeout plan, but defended James' decision to kick the extra point.
"If we start looking at that as the reason for losing, then we've got to start looking at a lot of other things too," Yarnell said. Still, most expected that the Gladiators would try to extend their lead to where a late Austin touchdown would only tie the game.
"Going for two towards the end, if we would have gotten it, it would have been good," Gladiators fullback/linebacker Frank Carter said.
Austin (2-4) slowly moved down the field on its final drive to prevent Las Vegas from getting the ball back. After calling a timeout with 50 seconds remaining, James then let the clock run.
"We decided at that point to let the defense handle it," James said.
On the final play, Fitzgerald floated a pass to the front of the end zone, where Nickerson stepped in front of the deep Las Vegas zone to grab his 12th touchdown pass of the season.
"He made a play," Gladiators defensive back Marvin Taylor said. "The shortest guy on that team made a play."
If the Gladiators had knocked the ball from Nickerson, James might have gotten away with not going for two up both 34-33 and 41-36 in the fourth quarter. Austin did not let that happen, taking the lead in both situations.
"We played good on defense, but we just made too many mistakes on offense and on special teams," Carter said.
Las Vegas lost a fumble on a freak kickoff bounce off the upright and Whelihan threw a fourth-quarter interception that Austin turned into the go-ahead touchdown. Whelihan played well overall for the second consecutive game, completing 24 of 31 passes for 277 yards and five touchdowns.
What's worse than the strange mechanics of the final minutes is their effect on the Gladiators in the standings. A win against Austin would have put Las Vegas in control of its drive for a playoff spot in the mediocre American Conference, tied with Los Angeles atop the Western Division with games this week at Columbus (1-4) and next week at Arizona (1-5).
Instead, the Gladiators are now under pressure to close the easiest quarter of their schedule with a pair of wins. These two road games begin a two-month stretch in which Las Vegas plays at home just twice.
The positive news is that the Gladiators are ready to welcome back starting quarterback Clint Dolezel, who missed the past four games with a broken middle finger on his throwing hand. The team went 2-2 without Dolezel, with Whelihan and Rod Robinson both going 1-1 in relief.
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