Hanging from a Rock’s edge, Rogers wins it
‘That was a top-five all-time lacrosse game, summer league, NLL, whatever’
Matt Sawyer joked that the game “might have shaved a couple of days off my life,” but he’ll accept that because his whole team now lives to see another day. At least two days, actually.
Sawyer is the head coach of the Rock, who edged the Halifax Thunderbirds 14-13 in overtime in Friday night’s single-elimination National Lacrosse League East semifinal before a deafening FirstOntario Centre crowd of 7,241 which ran the gamut of every collective emotion possible before ultimately landing on jubilation.
The Rock will now play the Buffalo Bandits in a best-of-three East final which opens next Sunday night (6 p.m.) with Game 2 set for Hamilton, Saturday May 22 (7 p.m.). The first-place Bandits beat Albany 10-5 to advance to meet the Rock.
The Rock led 5-0 early and 9-3 at the half, but eventually fell behind 13-12 with just over nine minutes to go. They tied the game a couple of minutes later and then forced overtime when goalie Nick Rose made a pair of impossible saves in the final two seconds with Thunderbirds goalie Aaron Bold removed for an extra attacker.
Two minutes into overtime, Rock captain Challen Rogers blocked an Auston Shanks’ shot, retrieved the loose ball and raced the length of the floor alone to freeze, then beat, Bold and transform local agony into ecstasy.
Nobody who was at this tumultuous affair will ever say they’re not coming back because lacrosse is boring. This was first-class, heartthumping entertainment.
“It’s easy for us to say because we won but that was a top-five all-time lacrosse game, summer league, NLL, whatever,” Sawyer agreed. “I’m glad he had that moment. Challen is far and away the best all-round player in the game of lacrosse. To have someone who is as good as he is defensively to be able to do what he does offensively in those special situations; to this point there hasn’t been a player quite like that.”
If you believe in sport karma, then this was your confirmation that some collisions between player and opportunity were destined to happen. Lacrosse is a backdoor, frontdoor game in which a defensive unit charges onto the floor from the bench and the offensive unit comes charging off as soon as the team loses possession.
When elite scorer Rob Hellyer was hurt for the past four weeks, Rogers played mainly on offence, but Hellyer returned — scoring twice and adding three assists — which moved Rogers to defencefirst. In other words, if Hellyer hadn’t returned from injury Friday night, Rogers would not have been on the floor to make the play which gave the Rock its 12th win in the last 14 games.
Further, Rogers revealed later, Jamison Dilks was supposed to be going to the floor as the Thunderbirds grabbed possession, but the Hamilton native turned to the veteran and said, “You go!”
“I think everyone on our bench knew that as soon as (Rogers) tipped that ball and he had a breakaway the game was over. He’s pretty
automatic,” said Hellyer. “That’s why he’s our captain. And our leader. It’s a fun way to end it. It was a little closer than we wanted but we learned something from tonight.”
One of which would be, don’t let up and take sloppy penalties, which the Rock did in the midst of a thirdquarter Halifax run which resulted in four goals, two on the power play, to close a 9-3 deficit to 9-7 in the first seven minutes of the third quarter. They got five within barely five minutes to open the fourth quarter and grab their first, and only, lead of the game.
For the final half of the fourth period and into overtime, you couldn’t hear yourself think in the noisy bedlam.
Jake Withers, the best faceoff man in the league, was the linchpin of the Halifax comeback, winning faceoff after faceoff at key times, so the Thunderbirds got the ball back immediately after scoring, and played with the confidence and fluidity that the Rock had owned in the first half.
In overtime, it was anybody’s game, but Rogers made it his.
Tom Schreiber had a pair of assists and three goals for the Rock, giving him 50 total for the regular season and playoffs so far. Dan Craig had a goal and three assists, Mitch de Snoo and Dan Dawson each had a pair of goals and Zach Manns had two goals and three assists.
Shanks, Cody Jamieson (three assists) and Stephen Keough all had two for the visitors, who deserve enormous credit for their spirited comeback, while singles went to Withers, Brad Gillies, Ryan Terefenko, Tyson Bell, Dawson Theede and Eric Fannell.
Rogers, Hellyer and their coach all said the Rock players were confident they would win, because they’ve generally been the team which has been forced to overcome a deficit this season, and so don’t lose their cool. They nearly put that belief a little bit too much to the test.
“It’s one of the best groups of guys I’ve ever played with,” said the veteran Rogers. “I’m glad we get to keep on playing together.”