The Georgia Swarm’s Zach Miller scored on a crease dive from behind the net to give his team a 13-12 win in overtime against the Calgary Roughnecks on Friday night. After building up multiple leads of three and four goals in the first half, the Swarm had to come from behind to tie the game late and pick up the overtime victory.
Georgia’s record improves to 8-6 on the season, good for fourth place in the NLL. The Roughnecks drop to 5-7 and now sit in 10th place.
Miller opened the scoring two-and-a-half minutes into the contest, followed quickly by two more tallies to give the Swarm an early three-goal lead. Calgary would get two back over the rest of the period, but still trailed by one.
In the second quarter, Georgia scored twice more to re-establish their three-goal lead before Jesse King got one back for the Roughnecks, stealing a pass in front of the net and cashing in on a no-look shot behind his head. The Swarm responded with two more of their own to increase their lead to four. But once again Calgary came back, scoring three of the next four goals to close out the half, reducing the lead to just two goals.
Calgary’s Eli Salama opened the scoring less than a minute into the third quarter, bringing the Roughnecks to within a single goal. It took almost five minutes before another goal was scored—this time it was Georgia’s Lyle Thompson doing Lyle Thompson things, scoring an athletic dunk from behind the net to extend the lead to two once again.
It was the fourth quarter where things really got crazy. After the Swarm regained their three-goal lead, the Roughnecks scored twice to draw within one again. Thompson added his second of the night to push the lead to two goals, but Calgary then went on a three-goal run to tie the game and then take the lead with less than five minutes remaining. Georgia finally tied the game again with only 48 seconds left on the clock, forcing overtime. It took almost four minutes of back and forth action before Miller finally sealed the deal with the game winning goal.
Georgia’s Shayne Jackson led the offence with seven assists while Calgary’s Tyler Pace scored five goals and added an assist. Brett Dobson made 39 saves to get the win for the Swarm while Christian del Bianco stopped 45 shots in the losing effort.
The Roughnecks are back in action again on Friday, March 15 when the host the San Diego Seals. The Swarm are at home again on the 16th to take on the Philadelphia Wings.
