Mammoth, Rock advance to NLL conference finals
The Colorado Mammoth and Toronto Rock punched their tickets to NLL conference finals on Saturday night.
The Mammoth held off a late rally by the Vancouver Stealth in a 13-12 win before 4,011 fans in the first NLL playoff game played at the Langley Events Centre. The Mammoth will face the two-time defending champion Saskatchewan Rush, who had a semifinal bye, in the West final starting on Saturday.
“We put ourselves in a little bit of a hole, getting down four and gave up too many transitions, which we identified before the game was going to be something we had to work to not allow and we allowed it,” Vancouver coach Jamie Batley told NLL.com. “That is frustrating because we know how to stop it and we didn’t stop it.”
The Rock outscored the New England Blackwolves 13-4 over the final three quarters on the way to an 18-10 win at the Air Canada Centre. Toronto will face the Georgia Swarm in the East final starting on Saturday.
Shawn Evans scored twice for New England while his Century 21 Lakers teammates Kyle Buchanan and Chad Culp had a goal and two assists each.
Evan Kirk surrendered 15 goals on 53 shots in 53 minutes of work. Tom Schreiber paced the Toronto attack with four goals and three assists while Brett Hickey had two goals and six assists. Brandon Miller got the win in goal after relieving Nick Rose following five goals on 11 shots.
In Langley, Brad Self had a goal and two assists for Colorado who led 13-9 midway through the third before Vancouver reeled off the game’s final three goals to get within one. Callum Crawford led Colorado with three goals and an assist. Corey Small led Vancouver with six goals while Logan Schuss had three goals and six assists. Former junior A Lakers’ goalie Tye Belanger faced 45 shots in the Vancouver net.