Thunderbirds suffer crushing loss
With an NLL post-season berth in their sights, the Halifax Thunderbirds let one slip away Friday night in Vancouver.
The host Warriors scored 10 goals in the second half – five off the stick of Keegan Bal – in a dizzying 15-13 Vancouver win at Rogers Arena.
“We have come back in multiple games this year so we knew we could do it again,” Bal said in a post-game interview. “We are conditioned for it.”
Trailing 8-5 at halftime, Bal scored two goals in 33 seconds early into the third to breathe new life into the Warriors.
Bal started a three-goal run for Vancouver late in the quarter and early into the fourth, capped by Adam Charalambides’ tally at 1:43 to give the Warriors their first lead of the game.
After Randy Staats, in his return to the Halifax lineup, tied it at 11-all, Bal scored two nearly identical goals three minutes apart, each on a breakaway, high-stepping as he fired a shot to the short side of Warren Hill to put Vancouver up 13-11.
Clarke Petterson pulled Halifax to within one with 2:08 left on the clock, but Ryan Martel – with his fourth of the game – and Owen Grant sealed it for the Warriors (7-9), who won their fourth in a row.
Staats, playing in his first game since March 1, netted his fourth goal with six seconds remaining in the game.
A victory in their first-ever visit to Vancouver would’ve clinched a playoff spot for the Thunderbirds (9-8) in the penultimate game of their season.
Midway through the second quarter, the Thunderbirds led 7-2 and looked to be in complete control in this game. The Warriors, however, had other ideas.
“There was a lot of belief in the room that we could come back,” Bal said.
Auston Shanks paced Halifax with seven points and Petterson had six. Jake Withers won 26 face-offs, which included his 1,800th of his career, becoming just the fifth NLL player ever to reach that milestone.
The Thunderbirds fall to sixth place in the standings as they head into a bye week before playing their final game of the regular season, April 20 against the Colorado Mammoth at Scotiabank Centre.
The top eight teams advance to the playoffs, which begin the week of April 25. The Thunderbirds are in the thick of the playoff race but Friday's loss all but assured they will not host the single elimination first-round game.