It’s deja vu for the New York Lizards. For the second year in a row, the Florida Launch pulled an upset win over the New York Lizards following the All-Star Break, 20-19.
The Florida Launch jumped out to an early lead in the first quarter. Kieran McArdle and Steven Brooks led the Launch in offense, each scoring two of the Launch’s seven goals. One of Florida’s goals was a two-point goal. The Lizards, on the other hand, struggled to get any kind of offense going, mustering only four goals. Dave Lawson, Drew Westervelt, Greg Gurenlian, and Rob Pannell were the goal-scorers for the Lizards, as the first quarter ended with the Launch out front, 8-4.
Defense was the key focus for the Lizards in the second quarter. New York managed to hold Florida to only three goals. Meanwhile, Paul Rabil was adding his name to the goal-scorers list, scoring two goals in the second quarter. Lawson tallied another goal to his stat line and Chris Piccirilli scored the Lizards’ fourth goal of the quarter to end the first with the Launch out front, 11-8.
Unfortunately for the Lizards, McArdle wasn’t done offensively. In fact, there was more that came from him in the third quarter. Once again, McArdle led the Florida offense with three goals in the beginning of the second half. Helping him out was Owen Byle with two goals and Steve Pontrello with one goal. The Lizards were once again limited to four goals, although Rabil scored a two-point goal and Lawson added another goal to his stat line, giving him the hat-trick, while Steve DeNapoli and Chris LaPierre erased their zeroes that stood in their goal stat with a goal each. By the end of the third quarter, Florida was back out front by four goals, 17-13.
It became crunch time for the Lizards when the fourth quarter began. They wasted no time trying to cut into the deficit with Pannell and Westervelt opening the final frame with a goal each. The offense then went cold for a while, but Pannell got them back on-track with his third goal of the game followed by goals by Lawson (a two-point goal) and LaPierre. That would’ve been enough offense for the Lizards to complete the comeback, if it wasn’t for the fact that while the Lizards’ offense went cold, Connor Buczek, Miles Thompson, and McArdle had each scored a goal for the Launch to give them enough to hold the lead for the win, 20-19.
With the loss, the Lizards drop their third-straight game, but that’s not the only thing that they’re dropping. They have also dropped positions in the standings, from first to third in the last three weeks with their record at 6-4. The schedule won’t get any easier next week as they travel to Rochester to take on the Rattlers, the team the Lizards met in the championship game last year and on Opening Day this season. If the last two match ups are any indication, the Lizards are going to have their work cut out for them.
