If anyone knows what John Lovell said to the Toronto Rock at halftime of Saturday night’s game, please don’t tell me. If I hear it, I might just lay down and have a nap, ignoring whatever task I’m in the middle of.

The Rock started strong, scoring six goals on their first seven shots and chasing Matt Vinc from the Knighthawks net early in the second quarter. I know, right? They chased Matt Vinc! Doyle had a hat-trick, Billings and Hellyer had a couple each, and Leblanc had one – and this is only 4½ minutes into the second quarter. Rochester had their chances as well, but Nick Rose was solid in the first half – better than solid, actually, he was really good. The Knighthawks scattered five goals throughout the first half, while the Rock scored eight on Vinc, though they only scored one after backup Angus Goodleaf was brought in. Toronto was definitely in control at the half, leading 9-5.

And then came The Speech. Maybe it was something like “Well, this game’s over boys, we don’t need to try so hard in the second half” and everybody on the Rock’s veteran-laden team bought that. Maybe it was something like “I feel sorry for those poor Knighthawks. Maybe we should let them back in the game to make them feel better!” Or perhaps it was an early April Fool’s joke and the two teams switched uniforms.

Whatever happened, it was bad. The second half of this game might have been the worst half of lacrosse the team has played all season. Rochester had scored the last goal of the second quarter and then scored the next seven goals to turn a 9-4 Rock lead into a 12-9 Knighthawks lead. Finally Garrett Billings scored, 16 minutes after the Rock’s last goal, to break the streak but the Hawks just started a new one, scoring the next five and putting the game out of reach. In the end, Rochester outscored the Rock 12-3 in the second half. The Nick Rose from the first half was nowhere to be seen, which led to a couple of goalie changes, with Steve Fryer making his Rock debut. Rose was brought back in later, but then was pulled a second time. The offense couldn’t get anything going, and they seemed to go from “Hey, we should really start scoring a few here or we’ll run out of time for the comeback” to full-on panic “Shoot as soon as you get the ball and maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll go in!” mode in no time flat. The second half collapse wasn’t entirely the fault of goaltending though, there were a number of defensive breakdowns that resulted in some Knighthawk player by himself with the ball on the edge of the crease and a few seconds to decide where to put it. Regardless of who the goalie is or how he’s playing, the majority of those are going in.

Just two days after the @NLLFactOfTheDay was about Angus Goodleaf, he came in and played an outstanding game. When he came out to start the third and fourth quarters, I was a little surprised that they didn’t go back to Vinc, but the way Goodleaf was playing there was really no point in putting Vinc back in. When you can keep the Rock offense to four goals in forty minutes, I don’t care how many Goalie of the Year awards the other guy has, you are staying in the net. FYI Goodleaf is no longer the league’s GAA leader – that would be Brodie MacDonald with 5.37, while Goodleaf has 5.41. Goodleaf is still the league’s save % leader at 87.2%. He’s also played over 55 minutes this season, over ten times what he played last year.

Other game notes:

• Jesse Gamble and Scott Self were in a “fight” in the first quarter. I put “fight” in quotes because it took them long enough to get each other’s helmets off so that they could fight, it looked like they were too tired to continue. I’m not sure Self actually threw any punches, and Gamble might have thrown a couple.
• Just look at this Colin Doyle spin-o-rama goal. Just look at it. This is the last goal that Vinc allowed.
• Cody Jamieson gets credit for this goal but just watch the play that birthday boy Johnny Powless makes to set it up. Powless has played 2½ seasons and has won two Championships and he just turned 21.
• Near the end of the game, some clearly drunk Rock fan (in a Chicago Shamrox jersey) started chirping to the Knighthawks players in the penalty box and then started making rude gestures to them, even grabbing the plexiglass between him and them and almost pulling it down. He was thrown out but as he left, he started waving to the fans and they cheered him. Why? Why does this idiot deserve cheering? Why aren’t we embarrassed?
• No announcement was made at the game, but Dan Dawson netted his 1000th career point in this game. Congrats to one of the best scorers in league history and a slam-dunk Hall of Famer once he retires. He’s still playing at an awfully high level though, so retirement could still be (and hopefully will be) many years away.
• I asked on twitter whether the momentum had shifted in the second half, but got conflicting answers:

So, that game sucked.

The first quarter wasn’t bad. Nick Rose was playing pretty well and only allowed one goal, Colin Doyle had a hat-trick, things were looking pretty good. It wasn’t great, in that nobody other than Doyle was able to score, but hey, it’s Matt Vinc so you can’t expect much better. The fact that so many shots were missing the net entirely was a little worrisome, but that’ll get better, right? Well no, not really.

The Knighthawks came out stronger in the second, taking the lead halfway through the quarter. Again, Doyle seems to be the only Rock player who can solve Vinc, but then Steph Leblanc scores a couple and Patrick Merrill pulls a Geoff Snider and scores right off the face-off. The Rock have the lead back again, the Knighthawks momentum has been stopped, and things are looking good again, right? Well no, not really.

Out of nowhere, Rochester scores four within two minutes and while it may not have had an effect on Nick Rose’s confidence, it certainly affected that of all the fans near me. Suddenly the Rock are losing going into halftime, and whatever momentum there is belongs to Rochester. After halftime, that momentum continued for the Knighthawks, as they reeled off another seven in a row, leading many a Rock fan in attendance to wonder “wasn’t it 7-5 for the Rock at one point?” I know I’ve seen the Rock come back to win a game that they were losing by 7 in the fourth quarter, and I think they’ve come back from a deficit of 8 once. But not against Matt Vinc and the Rochester defense. And not the way the Rock were playing on this night.

The Rock D just didn’t have an answer for the Knighthawks offense. Maybe it’s that the Rock defenders aren’t all that big – of the twelve D or T players on the Rock, only AJ Masson and Craig England are over 200 pounds. Compare that with the Knighthawks – of their 12 D or T players, only four are under 200 pounds, and one of those is 197.

The Rock rookies have been playing pretty well this year – mainly O’Connor, England, and Lum-Walker – but O’Connor and England (Lum-Walker was sent to the practice roster when Merrill returned) really did look like rookies in this game, making silly mistakes, getting easily beaten by forwards, and taking dumb penalties; particularly England who after serving a two-minute penalty, left the penalty box, ran across the floor, checked Cody Jamieson across the back, and returned to the penalty box. The two teams played 5-on-5 for seven seconds before Rochester was back on the PP.

But to be fair, some of the Rock veterans played like rookies as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever had occasion to say this before, but Garrett Billings did not have a good night at all. He scored once, near the end of the game, but otherwise he was missing the net (by several feet at times), missing passes, dropping the ball when nobody was around him, all kinds of things. He just didn’t look good.

So the days of the Rock hosting the Knighthawks and expecting to win because they always have are gone, as are the days of the Rock expecting to lose in Rochester. The Rock are no longer undefeated at home, and the Knighthawks are no longer winless on the road. Next week Minnesota comes to town, and then a couple of weeks after that it’s the Knighthawks again.

Other game notes:

• Patrick Merrill returns and Scott Johnston continues taking face-offs? Well, he took the opening one and then 9 more, while Merrill took 18. AJ Masson and Sandy Chapman took one each as well. As a whole, they won 33% of them. Someone on the IL Indoor message boards talked about acquiring Jordan MacIntosh from Minnesota. This would be an expensive acquisition (at least a first round draft pick, if not two) but how great would it be to have him, Gamble, and Edwards on transition?
• The Rock announced the game’s three stars after the game – Jamieson, Keogh, and Dawson. What? No Matt Vinc? Have to disagree there. My three would have been Vinc, Keogh, and Jamieson.
• Nick Rose allowed 14 of the 17 Rochester goals, including 10 of their 11 in a row. They really didn’t think after he’d allowed, say, 6 in a row and the team went from winning by 2 to losing by 4 that maybe it was time for a change? Was it because they are overconfident in Rose’s ability to stop the bleeding or because they lack confidence in Boychuk, who I thought did a fine job in relief?