TORONTO – The Toronto Rock hit the road this weekend and faced off against the Calgary Roughnecks tonight in front of 10,586 fans. An equally impressive offensive, defensive and goaltending effort by the Toronto Rock proved to be successful as they pulled out a huge win over the Roughnecks with a final score of 12-10. The win puts the Rock (5-7) into a positive position heading into their scheduled match up against the Edmonton Rush tomorrow night. .
Lewis Ratcliff opened the scoring for the Rock nearly five minutes into the first quarter and quickly followed by another before Calgary put themselves on the board on a power play goal by Kaleb Toth. Jason Crosbie scored a third for Toronto and the Rock took a two goal lead with just over four minutes left in the quarter. Toth scored another for the Roughnecks closing the gap to one and with a two man advantage, Calgary tied the game at three all with Scott Ranger scoring his first of the night and closing out the quarter.
On the Rock’s fourth power play of the night, Kasey Beirnes opened the scoring for Toronto in the second quarter and a tough defensive line along with stellar goaltending by Bob Watson held Calgary off in the second while Lewis Ratcliff scored his third for Toronto. Toth also secured his third of the game to follow but Ratcliff didn’t take long to put another one past Roughnecks goaltender Matt King and Rock forwards Craig Conn and Luke Wiles each secured their first goals of the night back to back to give Toronto an 8-4 lead.
Matt King, who started his fourth straight game in goal tonight for Calgary was replaced with Pat Campbell with 6:50 left in the second quarter and the scoring streak continued as Kasey Beirnes recorded another for the Rock and Toth responded with his fourth of the night. The Roughnecks trailed the Rock by four goals heading into halftime.
Watson stopped the first four shots by the Roughnecks until forward Dane Dobbie connected on a power play goal for Calgary in the third quarter. A five minute penalty for Craig Conn gave the Roughnecks a man advantage and Kaleb Toth put one past Watson to bring the score up to 9-7 with just over three minutes left in the third and the score remained with the Rock up by two to finish out the quarter.
Dobbie scored first for the Roughnecks early into the fourth and another gave Calgary their seventh power play goal tying the game at 9-9. Huge saves by Bob Watson and two back to back goals from Blaine Manning would give a two goal lead back to Toronto with six minutes left in the game. A one handed goal behind the net from Ratcliff, his fifth of the night, followed and the Toronto defence held the Roughnecks to only one more goal from Dobbie.
Despite serving 42 penalty minutes throughout the game, including one that ran into the end of the game, the Rock pulled away with a huge win over the Roughnecks with a final score of 12-10.
Leading the Rock with six points (5 goals, 1 assist) was former Calgary Roughneck forward, Lewis Ratcliff. Kasey Beirnes recorded 2 goals and 3 assists and Blaine Manning tallied 2 crucial fourth quarter goals along with 2 assists on the night.
Rock forward Jason Crosbie recorded 1 goal and 4 assists and Craig Conn and Luke Wiles each contributed a goal each. Goaltender Bob Watson saved 41 of 51 shots to record the win.
Kaleb Toth led the Roughnecks with eight points (5 goals, 3 assists) and Dane Dobbie tallied 3 goals for Calgary. Josh Sanderson recorded 1 goal and 6 assists.
The Rock make their way to Edmonton to face off against the Rush tomorrow night on Saturday March 28th at 9:00 p.m. EST.
