Lacrosse fans rejoice as Nationals head to post-season

Published at 5:00 pm on July 25, 2009
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Gordon Anderson
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Two offensive powerhouses collided at BMO Field Thursday night, and they didn’t disappoint.

Going into the game the Toronto Nationals led Major League Lacrosse (MLL) with 150 goals and the Boston Cannons ranked second with 146.

With two points separating the teams in the standings it wasn’t surprising the game went down to the wire.

When Joe Walters potted the overtime winner at 2:57, to give Toronto an 18-17 victory in front of 3,452 soggy patrons, the Nationals vaulted from fourth into a second place tie with the Cannons, both with identical 6-5 records.

The fact that the Nationals even tied the game is a small miracle. Going into the final session the Nats trailed 15-9 before outscoring the Cannons 8-2 to force the extra session.

The victory also meant the Nationals, winners of two consecutive, clinched a playoff spot in their first season of play.

“We are finally starting to see the heart (I think) we have,” Walters said. “In the second half we knew we would have a spurt. It’s good to see the team come back and pull together.”

The Nationals started brightly with two goals before the first quarter was three minutes old. Merrick Thomson dove through the crease and put one far side to get his 36th goal of the year at 1:06, and 1:41 later, Delby Powless increased the gap to 2-0.

Paul Rabil, the MLL hardest shot winner (111 miles per hour) in the recent all-star game, scored his 6th two-point goal of the year when he beat Nationals goalie Doc Schneider from the top of the 10-metre crease.

“He caught me cheating a little bit,” Schneider said. “He banged the ball off my stick side, high pipe and in. It was a fantastic shot.”

Toronto retook the lead when Jeff Zywicki scored his 16th at 8:09 of the first.

Boston scored two consecutive to take a 4-3 lead at the end of the first and ripped off another deuce to extend the lead to 6-3, over five minutes into the second, when Matt Poskay scored his 11th of the campaign.

Toronto scored three and Boston notched two in 5:11 and the Nats pulled to within a pair of goals at 8-6 but Sean Morris gave the Cannons a 9-6 lead at the half.

“Most sports are about momentum but in lacrosse you can control the object, so you can score pretty quickly and go on those runs,” Huntley said.

“If you win a couple of face offs the guys are so good on offence they are going to put the ball away,” Schneider said. “If you lose the ground ball war they’re going to put the ball in the back of the net.”

Rabil, the MLL’s leading point-getter, was up to his same old tricks in the second half when he scored another two-point goal 52 seconds in to give Boston an 11-6 lead.

The Cannons stretched the lead out to 12-6 before Thomson and Shawn Williams answered back for the Nats.

Three Boston goals in 1:55 gave the visitors a 15-8 advantage before Zywicki scored his second of the night, on the power play, to give the National a faint pulse going into the final quarter.

However, Toronto roared back to put up a five spot in just over six minutes to make the score 15-14.

“I felt like we played pretty well all through the game but we were on the short end of things,” Huntley said. “We got it (the deficit) to three at the TV timeout and we kept going for there.”

“We had a sense of urgency,” Walters said. “We knew we had to win to make the play offs.”

Rabil and Thomas traded goals to make the score 16-15 before Walters tied it with a shot that beat Levin high to the stick side.

Corey Small scored his first of the year at 11:11 to give the Nats a 17-16 lead but Kyle Sweeney saved the reeling Cannons with 1:17 remaining, setting the stage for overtime.