Only four games this past weekend, but they all made my Awesome list in one form or another. If you’ve got some time and you didn’t see any of them, head on over to NLL+ (or TSN.ca in Canada*) and check them out. You will not be disappointed.

* I don’t know if the TSN/ESPN games are available on NLL+ or another streaming service (is ESPN+ a thing?) in the US but I assume so.

Awesome

Mammoth/Rock game

This was a great game and I summarized it here.

Tehoka Nanticoke goal

I had “Tehoka Nanticoke goal” in the Awesome list last week as well, but it was obviously a different goal. This time, he was cutting to the net with a defender… not exactly “holding” him but effectively preventing him from using his left arm. No big deal though, he just let go of his stick with his left hand and shot with his right. Despite only one hand on the stick, he still managed to get it over the right shoulder of Del Bianco. That takes some serious skill as well as forearm strength so more kudos to Tehoka.

Tehoka Nanticoke

Buffalo/Vancouver game

Lacrosse, as it turns out, is a game of runs. (Everybody drink.)

Buffalo scored the first goal of the game, and then it began. Vancouver scored five straight over the next sixteen minutes to take a 5–1 lead. There was no stopping Vancouver, until Buffalo did. Then Buffalo scored six straight over the next 4½ minutes to take a 7–5 lead. There was no stopping Buffalo, until Vancouver did. The Warriors got one back before halftime and then scored four more in the third while holding Buffalo scoreless to take a 10–7 lead. After almost 26 minutes without scoring, Buffalo tried to get back into the pattern but they could only manage two in the fourth before Curtis Dickson put it away with 13 seconds left.

Similar to the Colorado/Toronto game, both teams played really well at times and really sloppy at times. Both goalies made some amazing stops but each allowed one or two they would usually stop. It wasn’t a perfect example of lacrosse at its finest, but it was definitely an exciting game.

Halifax/San Diego game

Another exciting game with lead changes and scoring streaks, but slightly fewer goals than the BUF/VAN game. Chris Origlieri played well throughout the game but was outstanding over the last few minutes as the Thunderbirds tried desperately to tie it up. The Seals went over 14 minutes without scoring, and then scored two within a minute and five in under seven minutes. Halifax also went about 14 minutes without scoring, then scored one but it took another nine minutes to get the next one. Regardless, they tied it up early in the fourth before Dylan Watson scored what turned out to be the final goal of the game. Halifax pushed hard at the end of the fourth but as I said Origlieri was just too good.

Halifax took a bunch of penalties in this one, reversing the trend from their last few games, but many of them were coincident minors as the Seals took a bunch of penalties as well.

Wings + Nick Damude in the first half, Rush in the second

The 9–1 Rush headed into Philadelphia to take on the 2–7 Wings. With all due respect to the Wings, nobody was expecting a close nail-biter. And for the first quarter of the game, it wasn’t, but not in the way anyone expected. The Wings scored three on Frank Scigliano while the Rush offense was off-balance and Nick Damude stopped everything that came his way. At no point in the first half would you have guessed that one of these teams had a .900 winning percentage while the other was at .222.

The Rush finally got on the board in the second and that quarter the Wings had the lead, lost it, were down by one, and then tied it again. The two teams swapped goals again early in the third, and the game was tied once again a minute in.

But then the Rush we’ve been used to all season arrived. The offense started clicking and Scigliano started playing like we know he can, and before we knew it the Rush had taken a two-goal lead that they never gave up. They ended up scoring nine of the last ten goals of the game, making the final score 14–6. That score makes it look like the blowout that many expected given the winning percentages I mentioned. That was true in the second half, but kudos to Damude and the Wings, particularly their defense, for their amazing first-half performance.

Not Awesome

Bad decisions by the Bandits

Make no mistake, Mitch de Snoo is an awesome lacrosse player. As a Rock fan, I was very disappointed when he didn’t return to the Rock after being traded to the Wings last year. But with about 45 seconds left in Friday night’s game against Vancouver, the Bandits were down by a single goal. de Snoo grabbed the ball in his own zone, ran through a whole bunch of defenders into the offensive zone and then, inexplicably, took a low-percentage backhand shot from a bad angle which Del Bianco stopped easily. When you have less than a minute to score one goal and you have Smith, Byrne, Nanticoke, MacKay, and Buchanan on your offense, let them do it. They didn’t have a ton of time but they did have a full shot clock. de Snoo has a pretty good shot but that’s not his specialty. It didn’t cost Buffalo the game but it did take away an opportunity to tie it late.

Then just seconds later, Vancouver scored to go up by two. Connor Farrell won the ensuing faceoff cleanly, ran down to the Vancouver net and took a shot that missed the net by three feet. Once again, let the scorers score. Your job is to win the faceoff and you did that. Now give Dhane Smith the ball and GTFO. That said, this one was a little less “egregious” because they had to score two goals in under fifteen seconds just to tie it, so I guess a desperation shot off the faceoff was all they really had time for.