A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
This project is maintained by tfitch
All right, my vacation is winding down, time to get back to writing. This game review and the Shamrox preview are pulling me back to the real world.
Last Saturday’s Stealth game was their 4th in 8 days and the team appeared to show signs of tiring with 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter. The game was back and forth until those final minutes allowed the Swarm to pull away from a Stealth squad that just couldn’t muster the energy to close out the game.
Positives for the Stealth included rookie Steven Panarelli’s hustle and wrangling in loosies on face-offs. On offense, Jeff Zywicki continued his scorching scoring with 5 goals and 4 assists, including the final three for the Stealth, and captain Colin Doyle (3g, 8a) was an assist shy of being a part of every goal the Stealth put in. Finally, as I predicted, Tim Booth had a great game in the face-off circle (17 of 26), especially late in the game when he won all the draws necessary to keep the Stealth in the game even though the offense was unable to convert those possessions into goals. Good job Booth.
Unfortunately, Zywicki appeared to be the only Stealth player that could get a shot past Nick Patterson of the Swarm, especially late in the game. Luke Wiles took 19 shots and only found the net on one goal that was waived off because he toed the crease line. Colin Doyle was able to score some big goals throughout the first 3 quarters, but wasn’t left free late in the game to continue scoring. Patterson had an excellent 2nd half to slow down the Stealth offense that torched him in the first half. Without his exceptional efforts, even the tiring Stealth squad would have beat the Swarm.
The Stealth defense had good energy until those fateful five minutes at the end of the game. The offense hustled off the floor so the defense could get on the floor and slow down the Swarm transition game. The defense worked together to scoop up loosies and weren’t individually chasing down the ball. This coordination prevented the Swarm from pulling away sooner. The only thing they failed to do during the game was collect the rebounds off Cosmo from Swarm shots. This was atypical of how Cosmo usually plays in goal and provided the Swarm with a couple of ‘garbage’ goals on those second opportunities.
Minnesota was lead by stud rookie Craig Point with (2g, 5a). He was amazing, more impressive than Jordan Hall (having seen them both play). Hall is better at contributing all over the floor, but he’s not producing the scoring numbers that Point is. And why is Point allowed to have a silver face mask on his helmet while the rest of the team wear’s black ones? The leading gaol scorer for the Swarm on Saturday was Andy Secore with 3 goals.
The Stealth offense was lead by Zywicki and Doyle, but also received contributions from Gary Rosyski (2g, 1a), Cam Sedgwick (1g, 1a) and Curtis Hodgson (1g). Good work by everyone who contributed. We’re well on our way to having the Stealth team that went to the Western finals last season.
If the Stealth can rest up, no more 4 games in 8 days, defeat the Mammoth in the playoffs again and the Swarm can continue their current level of play and get past the rest of the East in the playoffs, I’d like to see this rematch in the NLL Finals. It’d be another close game and stellar conclusion to the 2008 season if it were to happen.
Game MVP: Jeff Zywicki, without his effort the Stealth would have been rolled over by the Swarm.