A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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It doesn’t mean much, because we’ve still got 8 game to go. But going in to Edmonton and beating a team that was 3-2 at home was fun to watch.
Okay, not the whole thing was fun to watch. The 2nd quarter was one of the worse quarters we’ve ever played, and that’s saying a lot. We persevered through giving up 5 goals in a row and being down 6-3 at the half. Coach Christianson lit a fire under their asses and we came out shooting in the 3rd quarter. We had a goal or two, but Andrew Burkholder really got things going with his huge sweeping goal from behind the net. He didn’t just sneak it in to the corner, he full on came over the top and had almost half the cage open to stick it in. It was cool and bizarre (how open the net was) at the same time.
Zywicki had a great game, putting in 3. Two of them were fabulous catches in traffic leading to shots right point blank on the crease. It’s pure box lacrosse watching a guy catch a pass with his defender on his hip in traffic and thinking nothing of it. In field ball you have to have a step on the guy, a little separation to be open for a pass. In indoor, it doesn’t compare. If your stick is up, you’re open. Being a field player myself, seeing a box player being ‘open’ will sometimes leave me in awe, because he was open, simply because his stick was up. Crazy.
The started the game off very very very jittery. We had the 5 minute man up in the first quarter and everyone seemed so tense they there sloppy. Not catching passed right on the crease or looking for the extra pass where a shot looked like a viable option. Or finally shooting when the 3rd or 4th option came open, but was comparably forced. This became even worse in the 2nd quarter when we only scored one goal.
We’ve got two more games in San Jose against these guys. Those will be very interesting! The game tonight was very physical, the Rush had a lot of hard and illegal hits. They were penalized accordingly, but having those hits come up in the first of three meeting… it’ll build to some great action in the 2nd and 3rd meetings.
Next weekend is the All Star Game. Doyle and Zywicki will be in action, everyone else will be taking a break and resting up for our first Portland game that is in two weeks. I’m looking forward to that game even more than tonights Edmonton game. Portland has some issues right now and I’m waiting to see if they can correct any of those issues at all. Last year we went to their place and creamed them in the first quarter. Getting up 7-1 I think. Then we managed to lose that game. I still have it on TiVo because it’s the greatest quarter I’ve seen a team play. I just restart it after the first quarter ends. The Lumberjax are a touch match up for us. They’re defense is solid, but their offense is dropped off from last year. Let’s keep things that way to pave the way to the playoffs.