Beloved lacrosse coach Dave Huntley would have celebrated his 61st birthday on July 29. The team he would’ve coached this season, the Atlanta Blaze, had concluded a stretch of three games in eight days.

While Huntley’s passing in December meant he couldn’t physically be there, Blaze players and coaches said his spirit and the lessons he taught them have been with them all season, especially in Week 14 — that’s when victories over the Chesapeake Bayhawks and Florida Launch extended the team’s win streak to four games and put them on the verge of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

“He really helped me grow into the player I am. He trusted me,” said goalie Adam Ghitelman, one of Atlanta’s captains and one of only two players remaining from the team’s initial expansion draft. “We’d have great conversations about the past, and the history of the game is so important to me. He enriched my knowledge of that. I respect how he coached and led our team. I try to carry on in spirit and through who I am now.”

Huntley was a part of the Atlanta organization from its very humbling beginnings in 2015, as were several current Blaze players and coaches, including assistant coach and general manager Spencer Ford, LSM Scott Ratliff, and Ghitelman.

While the Blaze rides a wave of momentum now, it comes after multiple years of struggles.

As an expansion team, the Blaze won only four games. The team traded number one overall pick, Myles Jones, after only he played only two games. The team fired head coach John Tucker after a 3-7 start. Attackman Kevin Rice, who was on pace to shatter the single-season points record, injured his knee and played in only nine games; the next year he would miss four games with a broken hand.

“It’s very difficult to build from an expansion draft. You get a list of players available,” Ford said. “In 15 rounds, you try to turn 15 picks into as many players you can through trades, or you take the very best players you could get your hands on. The best players happened to be playing in the NLL. Year one was a roller coaster ride. It was up and down, but we saw positive things in many of the guys who were part of that original team.”

The following season the Blaze improved in the win column, finishing with six wins, but still missed the playoffs. The team underwent a change in ownership, and then there was Huntley’s untimely passing in December.

According to Ratliff, the revolving door of players, coaches, and front office members was a detriment to the team.

“There was not any continuity,” he said. “We had turnover in coaching, turnover in management. It made it hard to get into a rhythm and do something special.”

Liam Banks was named the team’s head coach in January. The former Syracuse standout and MLL veteran is a big figure in the Atlanta lacrosse scene. He is the Thunder LB3 Partner and President of Lacrosse Operations, was a major promoter of the first MLL game in Atlanta in 2013, and he played a role in bringing the MLL Championship to Atlanta in 2014 and 2015.

Banks is happy to see the growth of the team this season and the growth of the franchise after many years of working to bring the team to the community.

“It’s been a process, and it’s still in its infancy,” he said. “We were fortunate to have really good people in this Atlanta community to invest time money and resources into making sure we could bring in these big time games and, eventually, a big time team.

“Having an opportunity in the playoffs, it’s a step we’d love to take this weekend and one that would help the infancy of Major League Lacrosse in the Atlanta area, help grow our fan base, help grow our presence with sports fans in general,” he added. “I’m fortunate the Atlanta Blaze entrusted me and hope Saturday we can take the next step in the process to build on what the guys before me built.”

The team is in an enviable position heading into the final week of the season, win and you’re in, but much like the previous two seasons, the 2018 season was another roller coaster ride.

Atlanta got off to a hot start, winning three of its first four games. Things were looking good in game five, as well, as the Blaze led nearly the entire game against the Dallas Rattlers until late in the fourth quarter, when Dallas scored the final three goals in regulation to tie the game and then scoring in overtime to win it.

That loss was the first of five consecutive losses. The Blaze could have fallen apart and finished with a record similar to past seasons, but the 2018 season was different.

“We’ve got enough maturity and experience to know that six is the magic number. If you can get to 8-6, you can get to the playoffs, and if you get to the playoffs, anything can happen,” Ratliff said. “We realized we needed to win five straight.”

To turn things around, the team needed strong leadership, and those leaders took their cues from Huntley.

“The thing he worked on the most with me that I’ve mentioned was taking the next step myself as a leader,” Ratliff said. “My early years in Boston, I felt I had to prove myself, get stats, take every run. He worked with me on dropping the ego, not worrying about my success but the success of the people around me. What I’ve been able to do this year, some of those lessons he left me with played a role in my development and our development as a team.”

Ghitelman added the team had added motivation to finish the season strong.

“I think something I’ve learned is to minimize expectations and have positive optimism about where we were,” he said. “We had a core group coming back. After losing Hunts, we had so much to play for. A lot of guys that know Hunts, it’s the underlying subconscious feeling that we have so much to play for, for a guy that meant so much to us and to the organization and to the game in general.”

Blaze veterans like Ratliff, Ghitelman, Rice, Justin Pennington, and Jeff Reynolds had gone through tough times prior to this season. The addition of players like Deemer Class (30 points, five two-point goals), Tommy Palasek and Matt Gibson (23 points apiece), Sergio Salcido (12 points in six games), and Joe Nardella (59.8 face-off winning percentage with the Blaze), along with rookies like Christian Cuccinello Connor Kelly, and Austin Sims has helped push the team late in the season.

“In my eyes, [Nardella is] the best face-off guy on the planet right now,” Ratliff said. “The chemistry with the rookies has been great.”

“Adding Tommy Palasek and Matt Gibson helped with our leadership,” Ghitelman said. “Having guys who had been there before in the locker room and add a little more of a fun atmosphere was so important in our game.”

Consistent contributions from veterans and rookies alike gave the team confidence. Even with the difficulty of three games in eight days, the Blaze viewed the situation as an opportunity.

“This week gave us an opportunity to come together closer as a team, dealing with adversity, whether its travel schedules, playing two games in a matter of three days, having the loss of your former coach in the back of your mind, but those things can bring you closer,” Banks said. “We were able to be closer which is something I think Coach Huntley would smile down on because we were able to be together for that time.”

When they hosted the second-place Chesapeake Bayhawks in a Thursday night matchup to kick off Week 14, the all-orange uniforms provided by new owner Andre Gudger — whom players and coaches raved about — gave the team an extra boost. Atlanta defeated Chesapeake, 12-11. Two nights later, the team traveled to Florida and beat the Launch, 16-13.

That leaves the Blaze with a 7-6 record heading into the final game of the season. A win against the 7-6 Denver Outlaws — who have been to the league championship each of the past two seasons — earns Atlanta its first playoff trip in franchise history.

The success the team has experienced in 2018 is a reward for sticking through the earlier challenges.

“The things we’ve gone through, it speaks volumes to what’s possible in sports,” Ghitelman said. “We’ll see what goes here, and we’re going to have fun doing it.”

Blaze players said the season is not a success unless they win, unless they head to the playoffs. Ford, however, is proud of their effort this season regardless of the outcome against the Outlaws.

“There is so much positivity and energy in Georgia,” he said. “It’s never easy in the MLL. It’s hard to win one game, much less get into the playoffs. The players can finally drive and compete knowing we trust them, an owner will tell them he’s proud of them, and they can push forward.”

Ford said the team dedicated Saturday’s game against the Launch to Huntley in honor of his birthday.

At the conclusion of the victory, with the Blaze on the precipice of history, Ford couldn’t help but think of how Huntley — a man he called his best friend — and he would celebrate.

“We’d be meeting over a meal. He’d be drinking a margarita. I’d have a beer,” Ford said. “The only thing he would want these guys to experience is one chance to compete for a Steinfeld Cup. He’d have a smile on his face. He’d say, ‘I told you so.’ He’d be positive. He’d be happy we got from year one to now, where every guy he cared so deeply about could ride into the sunset and compete for a championship.”