Henderson, NV – The Toronto Rock (5-10) allowed a late two-goal lead to evaporate and then gave up a shorthanded goal early in the extra period to lose 14-13 in OT to the Las Vegas Desert Dogs (4-12) on Sunday afternoon at Lee’s Family Forum in Henderson, Nevada.
While the NLL has not yet officially declared the Rock as eliminated from the postseason, today’s loss combined with the other results of the weekend have all but eliminated the Rock from playoff contention. There is still one scenario that exists in which the Rock would end up in 8th spot, but everything would have to break the Rock’s way.
“We struggled to find our game all night, it was there for periods of time, offensively and defensively, but start to finish wasn’t consistent,” said Rock Head Coach Matt Sawyer. “In a lot of ways, that game was a snapshot of our season.”
The Rock came out firing in the first quarter, building a 3-1 lead. Josh Dawick was doing damage early, scoring twice and Nathan Grenon continued to deliver that big energy the Rock have needed as they’ve fought for their playoff lives in recent weeks. The Desert Dogs battled back, scoring two of the next three goals, but the Rock held a 4-3 lead after one.
Las Vegas scored twice to open the second quarter to jump ahead 5-4, their first lead of the game. Elijah Gash’s transition goal broke up the Las Vegas three goal run, however the teams would exchange goals back and forth leading into the half, leading to an 8-7 Desert Dogs advantage at the break. Dawick added another goal in the second to complete the first half hat trick.
Once again, it was the home side doing early damage, scoring twice to stretch their lead to 10-7. Dawick scored twice more to give him five goals, and Dan Craig tallied for the Rock to draw the visitors even at 10-10 after three quarters.
Challen Rogers scored his second of the game, which was the 100th of his NLL career, and Justin Martin scored in transition off a nice feed from Brad Kri to push the Rock’s run to five goals, and their lead to 12-10. Las Vegas would score, but Grenon answered with this third of the game to restore the Rock’s two-goal lead 13-11 with less than five minutes to go.
From there, luck just wasn’t on the Rock’s side. A penalty in the Las Vegas end of the floor put the Desert Dogs on the power play and they took advantage of the opportunity to close to within one at 13-12. With just over a minute to go, the Desert Dogs’ Jackson Webster scored to tie the game 13-13.
The most interesting moments in this game were yet to come. With Las Vegas in possession of the ball with less than 30 seconds to play, they tried to call timeout even though they didn’t have one left, so at that point Las Vegas goaltender Landon Kells made his way to the bench to give his team the extra attacker. A quick turnover landed in the stick of Zack Kearney near the team benches and Kells had no choice but to take a penalty to save a goal and the game by delivering a high stick to the head of Kearney, earning Kells a major penalty. The Rock couldn’t score in the final fifteen seconds of regulation, so the game headed to overtime tied 13-13.
In overtime, while shorthanded, the Desert Dogs were pressing for the win and Webster delivered an aggressive pick to the back of Brad Kri that went uncalled sending the Rock defender to the ground and freed up the ball carrier Jack Hannah who fired a long range laser to win the game for Las Vegas, 14-13.
Dawick’s 5 goals and 1 assist gave him 6 points and 100 in his NLL career. Brad Kri collected 8 loose balls, one more than he needed to become just the second player in Rock franchise history with over 1,000 LB pickups in a Rock jersey.
Holowchuk finished the night with 36 saves on 50 shots. Justin Geddie started the game for Las Vegas but was pulled in the first quarter after allowing 3 goals on 5 shots in 4:37. Kells went the rest of the way for the win, making 34 saves on 44 shots.
The Rock were 0-for-2 on the power play while Las Vegas was 1-for-2 on the man advantage. The Desert Dogs also scored twice shorthanded, including the game winning goal.
The Rock will return home to face the Vancouver Warriors on Friday night at 8pm at Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga.
For more information on Toronto Rock tickets, please contact a Toronto Rock account executive by phone at 416-596-3075, by email at tickets@torontorock.com or visit torontorock.com.
