The Washington Stealth pulled an early season upset in front of 7,023 fans in Everett as they defeated the Rochester Knighthawks by a score of 13-12.
Athan Iannucci tiptoed around the crease to score with 1:23 left in the contest to give the Stealth the lead and they did not look back as they start their season 1-0. The Knighthawks, who were without Casey Powell, fall to 0-1.
Cliff Smith led the Stealth with three goals and eight points overall. Rhys Duch ended up with six points on the night while rookie Kyle Buchanan ended up with four assists in his first career NLL game.
Duch opened the scoring of the game before Johnny Poweless tied it for Rochester five minutes later. Transition man Matt Beers would score a transition goal and then Smith picked up his first to end the first quarter 3-1 Washington.
The score was 6-6 at the half with Smith picking up his other two goals in the second quarter. Rochester opened the fourth quarter with a one goal lead before Stephen Keogh made it 10-9. Duch would score two more goals while Joe Walters would pick one up for Rochester and it was 11-10 Knighthawks.
Mitch McMichael scored his first career NLL goal to tie the game at 11. With under two minutes left Johnny Powless scored on a beautiful behind the back goal, but thirty seconds later Iannucci would score the game winner.
In his Knighthawks debut Dan Dawson picked up three assists and shot on net five times. Cody Jamieson shot nine times to led the Hawks. The Stealth outshot Rochester 64-47 with 35 of those shots combined from Ratcliff, Duch and Iannucci.
Matt Vinc made 51 saves in his performance, though there were two goals late in the first half he would probably like to have back. Richards made 35 saves in the win.
Washington travels to Colorado next week to face the Mammoth while the Knighthawks have off until week three, when they will host the Buffalo Bandits.
