RUSH THROWN TO WOLVES
New England spoils home opener
Without a championship banner raising to celebrate Saturday, the Saskatchewan Rush were grounded in their National Lacrosse League home opener at Sasktel Centre.
As a matter of fact, the Rush looked really, really flat.
The result was a disappointing 12-8 loss to the visiting New England Black Wolves as the Rush fell to 1-1 to start the new NLL season. New England improves to 2-0. “We just came out flat,” Rush veteran defender Kyle Rubisch said. “We dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t come back from it.”
The play of Black Wolves goalie Doug Jamieson didn’t help matters for the hometown squad. Jamieson made 44 saves in the win as New England led for the entire game.
Callum Crawford was another formidable beast for the Wolves, leading the visitors with three goals and three assists.
Reilly O’connor, with two, Dave Emala, Andrew Kew, Joe Resetarits, Jordan Durston, Stephen Leblanc and Nick Chaykowsky also scored for New England, which led 4-1 after the opening quarter and 9-4 at the half.
Durston’s goal chased Evan Kirk out of the Rush net with 12:32 remaining in the first half.
Kirk was replaced by Adam Shute after the Wolves scored four goals on their first nine shots and six goals on 16 shots.
At the other end, the Rush were shooting blanks.
“Our offence wasn’t shooting well, and it showed tonight,” admitted Saskatchewan forward Mark Matthews, who got his team on the board with a rare penalty shot tally and paced the Rush with four goals and one assist.
“We’ve got to stick with it. Obviously, we know we can score. We’ve got to keep with it.”
Rush defender Mike Messenger scored on a beauty off a breakaway, diving on his shot after taking a pass from Jeff Cornwall.
Rubisch, yet another big defender, also scored on a breakaway. His goal made it 9-4 at the half.
“I don’t usually score too many goals,” said Rubisch, who also scored in the third period. “It’s always nice to score goals but it’s always better when you win. It’s just one loss and we move on from here.”
Jeff Shattler also scored for Saskatchewan, which outshot New England 52-49 but had trouble solving Jamieson.
“My D played awesome, so they’ve got to get a lot of credit, too,” said Jamieson, deflecting praise from his 44-save performance. “We’re excited. A lot of people didn’t think we’d win these two games. It gave us a chip on our shoulder. We’ve just got to keep rolling. We’re off to a good start.”
Kew added an empty net goal for New England to round out the scoring.
“I don’t understand why we weren’t ready to play, being the home opener,” said Rush head coach and general manager Derek Keenan. “We had a good practice (Friday) and a good session (Saturday) morning. We prepared well, but they jumped on us a little bit and we got behind early.
“We dug ourselves a pretty deep hole, but we got out of it, I thought, especially from a compete level. We really played hard and played well in the second half. I thought we outplayed them; we just didn’t bury the ball. We’ve got to find a way to do that.
“Bottom line is we needed more. We had several guys on the O-line who had zero (points). We’ve got to be better. When Kyle Rubisch is your best shooter, you’ve got to wonder. Rubes was great tonight and kind of gave us the momentum and we needed to take advantage of that.”
The Rush squad returns to action on Dec. 28 against the New York Riptide in Long Island, N.Y.