Wesley Berg, Austin Staats (Jake Whiting/NLL)
Who’s ready for some NLL after dark? The Friday night contest between the Georgia Swarm and San Diego Seals came to you from Pechanga Arena, with an 11 p.m. start on the East Coast. If you couldn’t stay up for this game in its entirety, we highly suggest you rewatch, because man, it was good.
The Charlie Daniels classic “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is an all-time hit. Here’s my made-up rendition of the opening lyric. (Forgive me now) “Wesley Berg played lacrosse against Georgia, he was looking for some socks to steal.” Berg had himself a monster game, tallying six goals in total and buried the OT winner, as he and the Seals snuck out with a 12-11 win on their home floor. Enough with the cheesy song parodies, let’s get to the action.
Georgia deserves their flowers, as they controlled a big portion of this game, especially being without star forward Andrew Kew. The Seals drew first blood as Jake Govett started the party. Georgia had the answer as Seth Oakes and Bryan Cole rattled off two-straight, but San Diego matched their two. Curtis Dickson notched his first on the power play and was followed up by Graydon Bradley. How about a reraise? Georgia did just that, as Zach Miller got his first, as well as Shayne Jackson on the power play. 4-3 Swarm after one.
The second quarter saw the scoring decrease, and an uptick in defense and phenomenal goaltending. Only three goals were scored in the frame, Jackson’s second for Georgia and Berg twice for the Seals, one of which was on the power play. A short and sweet second put us at 5-5 going into the break.
The goaltending battle we had was a juicy one as two youngsters duked it out. Christopher Origlieri was outstanding for the Seals, stopping 15 of 20. On the other side, equally as youthful and equally as stout, Brett Dobson made 22 saves on 27 shots.
Throw everything out from the second quarter, because the third was the polar opposite. Transition really picked up and the game turned into a track meet. Georgia came out of the half red-hot as they tallied the first three goals of the quarter. Scorers were Oakes, his second, Brendan Bomberry, and Brady Kearnan. San Diego answered with two of their own, one from Berg, his third, and the other from Austin Staats. Georgia, once again, answered right back with two, one from Oakes, his third, and the other from Lyle Thompson, who fired a bullet from distance. San Diego narrowed the deficit to one as they scored the last two goals of the quarter, the first from Berg, his fourth, and the other from Dickson, his second. 10-9 Swarm going into the final frame.
The track meet came to an end, and the fourth quarter was eerily similar to the second. Only three goals were scored, the first two from San Diego. Berg tallied his fifth and Eli Gobrecht got his first, and the Seals had their first lead since the first quarter with 6:08 to play in the game. It was crunch time for Georgia, and who better than Oakes to nod the game up. We love free lax.
Overtime had a little bit of back and forth, with both goaltenders putting their teams on their backs. Each team held the ball a few times before Georgia thought they won it. A crease violation brought the goal back and we played on. San Diego set up shop in the Georgia zone around the 11 minute mark. Mama, there goes that man again. Berg received a pass and fired a bullet from the slot that beat Dobson. Pure elation at Pechanga. Your final, 12-11 Seals.
Players of the game for San Diego were Berg (6+1), Dickson (2+3), and Staats (1+5). Origlieri was as stingy as could be, stopping 33 of 44 in total. For Georgia, Oakes (4+3), Jackson (2+6), and Thompson (1+3) led the way. Dobson had a heck of a game, unfortunately just coming up short. He made 46 saves on 58 shots.
“We wanted that one to end,” said Berg after the game. “It’s getting late, we have a lot of young fans that have to get home and I think we were getting pretty tired too. We have such an awesome fanbase, any time we come out here we want to win for them.”
San Diego (7-3) sits pretty among the top teams in the standings. They look to continue the momentum as they travel to Texas to take on Panther City Lacrosse Club (5-4) next Friday at 8 p.m. Georgia (6-6) is still in good shape and looks to cleanse their memory of this loss. They’re in Halifax on Friday night.
