Most of this NLL season has been a battle for the Toronto Rock. They returned to Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga on Saturday night looking for their fourth straight win. Their opponents, the San Diego Seals, opened the scoring and led until the Rock fought for a fourth quarter, five goal run. However, a late pair sealed the 11-10 victory – San Diego’s first ever against Toronto, and the Rock’s sixth loss.
The game began with a smudging ceremony by Stephen Winterhawk from the Mississaugas of the New Credit (pictured). Using sacred sage for unity, the elder smudged Toronto’s Justin Martin and San Diego captain Wes Berg helping the Rock celebrate Indigenous Heritage Night. Rock captain Challen Rogers painted special shoes, which were put up for auction following the game, along with Toronto’s game-worn jerseys, called the night ‘special’. “It’s a special opportunity for us to represent the game, where it came from, and the roots of the game,” he said.
Down 2-1 after the first, with Toronto’s only goal a power play marker from Elijah Gash, Rogers admitted, “We were chasing the game.” They continued to chase it when Wes Berg and Dylan Watson both scored their second of the night in the second quarter. A second power play goal from Josh Dawick and one in transition from Mitch de Snoo was all the offence the Rock would muster in the period, trailing 6-3 at halftime.
“Offensively, three goals in a half isn’t going to do it,” said Corey Small postgame. Small would score on the power play in the third quarter, and then a pair during Toronto’s fourth quarter run – the latter, goal number 400 in his career. “I don’t think there was any doubt we had what it would take to get back in the game,” he said. “One of the great qualities of this group is we’re not a team that’s going to fold up or quit.”
Trailing 9-5 after three quarters, Toronto scored twice in the opening minute of the fourth before Small, Brian Cameron and de Snoo rattled off three more in 1:29 later on to take a 10-9 lead. With the crowd roaring, Rock goaltender Nick Rose (who made 49 stops) and the defence kept the Seals off the board for 19:20 – but it was 1:16 too short. Former Rock veteran Rob Hellyer took an outside shot over a number of players to tie the game at 10 and just 27 seconds later, another outside shot from Berg beat Rose for the San Diego captain’s fourth of the game, and an 11-10 winner.
The win was not only San Diego’s first road win of the season, but the first time the Seals have defeated Toronto in team history.
“All excuses aside, I just think we’ve got to play better as a full team,” said Small. “We dug ourselves a bit of a hole and had to battle back.” To their credit, they did battle back. Toronto scored four times on five power plays, but were led offensively by transition specialist Mitch de Snoo (2,2). He was the only multi-goal scorer for Toronto outside of Small’s hat trick.
San Diego’s Wes Berg scored four goals, while Rob Hellyer contributed five points (2,3). Two others had four points. Chris Origlieri won his fourth game of the season stopping 40 Toronto shots.
Both the Rock and the Seals next games are against the unbeaten, two-time defending champion Buffalo Bandits – Toronto hosting on Friday night (February 15) and San Diego travelling to KeyBank Centre the following evening.
