Rush blows lead to suffer team’s first loss at home this NLL season
New England Black Wolves storm back in the final minutes and then win in OT
Perfect at home no SASKATOON more.
The Saskatchewan Rush suffered its first home loss of the National Lacrosse League season Saturday night, falling 13-12 in overtime to the New England Black Wolves before a stunned SaskTel Centre crowd of 14,532.
“Better to happen now than in the playoffs,” shrugged off Rush head coach Derek Keenan, whose team’s record fell to 10-5 while New England improved to 8-8 to keep its playoff hopes alive.
“We’ll regroup and be back next week.”
The visiting Black Wolves trailed for nearly the entire game but managed to find the equalizer with only eight seconds remaining in regulation and then scored the game winner at the 3:17 mark of overtime.
Shawn Evans notched the winner on a power play for the Wolves.
Curtis Knight had a hat trick and two assists to lead the Rush.
“I thought we controlled the game well for the whole game,” Knight said. “We were up by three at the end. I don’t know if we let up or if they got a couple of nice goals. Either way, we kind of gave away the game.
“I think we’re going to use it as a lesson. We saw what happened. We know it can happen in this league. We’re going to use it as a lesson and move on.
“We’d rather lose a game like that now than in playoffs.”
Mark Matthews added two goals and three assists.
Robert Church, with two goals, Jeff Cornwall, Jeremy Thompson, Mike Messenger, Ryan Keenan and Ben McIntosh also scored for Saskatchewan, which led 4-2, 6-4 and 10-8 by periods.
Saskatchewan quickly built up a 4-0 lead Saturday with a flurry of goals in the opening seven minutes, but New England battled back.
Four times, the Wolves got to within a goal before finally knotting the score at 12-12 in the dying seconds.
“They kept it close, but we were up by three pretty late,” noted Keenan. “So we should have put that game away.”
New England trailed 12-9 but pulled goalie Evan Kirk for an extra attacker and rallied for three goals in the final 1:24, including a pair of goals in the last 28 seconds of regulation.
“We just made some poor decisions — a lot of them ended up in the back of our net — and we made a couple of bad ones in the last minute of the game,” Keenan said.
“Then we got into some penalties. They battled hard, though, and fought back. A tough one to swallow because I thought we controlled most of the game.”
Kyle Rubisch and Mike Messenger both took penalties in overtime.
Kyle Buchanan, who netted the equalizer with eight seconds left on the clock, had four goals and two assists for the Wolves. Evans and Kevin Crowley each scored two goals and two assists.
“It took everybody in our locker room to come back and win that game,” said Evans, a former twotime NLL MVP who is only four points away from becoming only the eighth player in NLL history to reach 1,000 career points.
“We didn’t quit. These guys are two-time champions. They’re a good team. You’ve got to be your best to beat this team and we never gave up.
“We had a minute left and we made it count.”
The Rush will wrap up its threegame home stand Saturday when it plays host to the Toronto Rock at SaskTel Centre.