Knighthawks continue to confound ‘flat’ Rush squad
‘It’s hard to explain,’ says coach as NLL’s top team falls to Rochester for second time
Chris Corbeil certainly didn’t have any answers.
Mark Matthews was equally dumbfounded.
Not even Derek Keenan, head coach and general manager of the Saskatchewan Rush, could figure out what it is about these Rochester Knighthawks this season.
Rochester defeated Saskatchewan Rush for the second time this year, earning a 13-10 victory on Saturday night before 14,811 fans at the SaskTel Centre.
“These are the first two times that I’ve ever lost to these guys in my career,” said Matthews.
“They just have something figured out on us this year, I guess, and we can’t figure out Vino (Knighthawks goaltender Matt Vinc) out for the life of us.”
The Knighthawks — who never once trailed in Saturday’s National Lacrosse League contest — remain the only team the Rush hasn’t beaten this season.
“It’s hard to explain,” said Keenan. “They hadn’t beaten us since 2012 prior to this year, so I don’t know. They did a good job of keeping us out of the middle and then, at times, when we did get good looks, Vinc was really good. He made some spectacular saves.”
Vinc stopped 43 shots for the win as Rochester improved to 7-7.
Saskatchewan slips to 11-3 on the season but still leads the NLL overall standings ahead of the Colorado Mammoth, who lost Saturday to the Vancouver Stealth.
“We don’t want Vancouver to do our dirty work,” said Rush captain Corbeil, shaking his head.
Joe Resetarits paced the Knighthawks with two goals and five assists for a seven-point night against the Rush.
Austin Shanks scored five times for the visitors. Eric Fannell added a hat-trick and an assist. Kyle Jackson, Eric Shewell, Scott Campbell and Colin Vitarelli also scored for Rochester, who led 4-2 after the opening period and 7-5 at halftime.
“They did a good job,” said Keenan. “The first half, honestly, we did far better than being down 7-5. Matt Vinc was really good. In the third, we were a little flat and they got a couple. We had a hard time getting back, but we did get back in it.
“We did get real close and then we got the too-many-men (penalty) and they capitalized on that (with 2:51 remaining) and that was the end of it.
“We got within a goal and then we got a penalty. We still had time. We had opportunities there. We just didn’t play hard enough at times and we didn’t play consistent enough. We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to learn from this.”
The Rush players knew what was coming Saturday. They were prepared for it. Yet, for the second time this year, they still weren’t able to beat the Knighthawks.
Rochester seems to have Saskatchewan’s number, even though the Knighthawks never had any luck with that prior to this season.
“We game-planned for it,” said Corbeil.
“We knew what they were going to do and they did it to us. We dropped the ball.”
Robert Church led the Rush with four goals and a pair of helpers. Matthews added a goal and four assists. Ben McIntosh tallied twice for Saskatchewan, who got singles from Jeff Shattler, Chris Corbeil and Ryan Keenan.
“They just weren’t going in,” said Matthews. “We had a lot of good shots and a lot of good opportunities early and late. (Vinc) played spectacular again and he shut us down.”
Saskatchewan held a 53-51 advantage in shots on net.
“I thought we were sloppier on defence than on offence,” said Keenan. “We didn’t play our game in the back end and we gave them way too many quality chances and didn’t finish shifts at times. You saw at the end of the game where they got re-possessions when they had one guy on the floor and we had five guys on the floor. That’s just not finishing.
“We didn’t have enough. We were flat.”
The Rush return to action on Saturday, April 7, at home against the Colorado Mammoth in a firstplace showdown.
“These losses always seem to wake us up,” said Corbeil.