Go! ‘Necks! Go!

Heading into these final four games, each team in the west is looking for any opportunity to set themselves apart and clinch a playoff spot. This weekend is vitally important for all west division teams especially. As it stands now, at least two of those teams — the Calgary Roughnecks and Portland Lumberjax — could clinch playoff berths depending on the outcome of the Colorado Mammoth – Arizona Sting game.

The San Jose Stealth started off the game with an impressive 2 goal lead in the first four minutes of the game. Those two goals turned out to be the only goals for the Stealth in the first as Calgary retaliated shortly after. Jason Wulder (2) and Lewis Ratcliff put little “G”’s beside their names and put Calgary up 3–2 at the end of the first quarter. Ratcliff’s only goal of the game and Wulder’s second were both on the powerplay.

At the start of the second frame, San Jose were first to score when Cam Woods put the ball past Curtis Palidwor. Woods’ goal was merely awarded as a “technicality” though since his shot went wide but bounced off the back boards and hit Palidwor’s elbow pad before rolling into the goal. Tied at 3, the Roughnecks came back putting two more past Brendon Miller — Kyle Goundry and Grant Hamilton both scoring their only goals of the game. Ian Hawksbee, unassisted and shorthanded, put the Stealth within one near the end of the first half.

Coach Cam Hall must have done something to the boys during half-time because they came out on fire. Captain Tracey Kelusky scored his first two goals of the game in the first four minutes to put Calgary ahead by 3. Gary Rosyski did his best to try and help the Stealth by scoring on Palidwor but “The Corporal” Ryan McNish put a stop to their momentum with an unassisted goal 9 minutes into the third quarter. San Jose fought back with goals from Kevin Fines and Chad Thompson to close out the frame.

With the score at an uneasy 8–7 for the Roughnecks, Kevin Dostie sought to change that early in the final quarter by putting up his first of the night. Cam Sedgwick brought the Stealth within one again by scoring four minutes later. Our boys rallied back with an amazing run over the next five minutes. Captain Kelusky put his third of the game past the Stealth net-minder at 7:42. About three minutes later Kevin Dostie — the little firecracker — notched another goal on his belt. Dostie followed that up with another, posting his third goal of the game a little over a minute later. Can you say hat trick? I knew you could.

Not willing to let the game go easily, the Stealth started pulling goal-tender Miller at every opportunity they could. Playing 6 on 5 lacrosse against our tight defense didn’t seem to give them too much of an advantage though. Jarett Park and Derek Malawsky were the only ones who could manage to score for San Jose during those extra attacker exchanges. It still wasn’t enough though and the Calgary Roughnecks beat the San Jose Stealth 12–10.

Game Highlights

The first highlight I’d like to mention is the bad bounce goal. Even though it was against our boys in red, I have to admit it was quite a goal. It’s tough to pick my absolute favorite highlight of the game since there were two that really stood out to me.

The first was watching Lewis Ratcliff get his 300th career point when he assisted Dostie’s second goal. The second is definitely watching Kevin Dostie get a hat trick, with all of his goals being in the fourth quarter. It’s a hard decision but I might have to go with Dostie’s hat trick.

At the beginning of the game there was a lot of rough play going on. Quite a few times I was expecting some throw downs but cooler heads seemed to prevail. That was until Kaleb Toth and Gary Rosyski got into it near the players bench. I didn’t really see what started it but I managed to catch the replay on the jumbo-tron for you to watch. Lacrosse fights are the best.