Monday, May 5, 2003 | 9:46 a.m.
The big bag of motivational tricks looks rather empty for the Las Vegas Gladiators coaching staff today.
Two weeks ago, Frank Haege put on the kid gloves to stroke his battered team after Las Vegas suffered blowouts at Grand Rapids and Orlando. The Gladiators responded by pounding Detroit to take control of the Eastern Division.
Those silky mitts, however, may have softened the Gladiators a bit too much. Las Vegas turned in its most distressing performance of the year Saturday night, looking passive en route to falling to a short-handed New York squad, 43-42, at the Thomas & Mack Center.
New York played without quarterback Aaron Garcia and receiver Mike Furrey, who signed with the St. Louis Rams earlier in the week. For the worse, the Gladiators appeared keenly aware of those absences in squandering chances to knock out the Dragons -- the last sailing away on Steve Videtich's last-second field goal miss from 36 yards.
"It was a game where I'm sure a lot of people were thinking, Furrey's not out there, Garcia's not out there," Haege said. "We didn't really come ready to go. Hopefully, we can get everybody's attention and get ready to go to Detroit."
Haege will remove the gloves and pull out the hammer in practice this week.
"You've got to come down on them a little bit, you've got to get after them a little bit," Haege said. "We've got to work a little bit harder, a little bit longer trying to get these guys ready."
Las Vegas (7-7) fell into a first-place tie with the Fury and kept New York (6-8) in the playoff race. The Gladiators are in eighth place, the last spot with a home playoff game.
"We just have to face the adversity and go from there," Gladiators QB Jay McDonagh said.
The adversity began at the end of Saturday's first half. Las Vegas grabbed a 28-14 lead with six seconds remaining on Sedrick Robinson's 1-yard scoring run, but quickly gave half the edge back when New York's Donvetis Franklin took the kickoff back 52 yards and shifted the momentum.
With Walter Church, a third-string quarterback making his first AFL start, leading the offense, New York went 45 yards on three plays for a touchdown to open the third quarter to tie the game. Church tossed four touchdowns, but also threw three interceptions. On both of Church's second-half interceptions, the Gladiators turned the ball back over on the ensuing drive.
"We're a pretty good football team, but we're not good enough to make mistakes like that and let people stay around," McDonagh said.
McDonagh played with efficiency, going 22-for-30 for 170 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He also ran for three scores, the last of which put Las Vegas ahead 42-35 with 2:17 to play, capping a nine-play drive spanning more than seven minutes.
Church calmly led the Dragons down the field, firing a 12-yard scoring pass to Damien Groce with 39 seconds remaining. New York went for two points, and Church hit Todd Doxzon on a crossing route identical to the touchdown pass to put the Dragons ahead.
"We kept them in it, and it killed us in the end," McDonagh said. "It came down to a kick."
McDonagh took Las Vegas to the New York 20, where Videtich moved his season mark to 11-for-23 with his miss.
"Whether it should have come down to a kick or not, it did," Videtich said. "I'm a professional. That's my job and I messed up. I didn't come through this time, so better luck next time."
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