The Rochester Knighthawks came away with an 11-9 victory over the Boston Blazers in front of the home crowd at Blue Cross Arena Saturday afternoon.
KNIGHTHAWKS INCH PAST BLAZERS FOR 11-9 WIN
Grant third all-time in goals scored, O'Toole gets win No. 100 with K'Hawks
02/13/2010
By Chris Di Matteo for NLL.com
The Rochester Knighthawks (4-3) beat the Boston Blazers (3-4) in a 11-9 game Saturday afternoon in Blue Cross Arena. The Knighthawks move into sole possession of third place in the East Division with the win while the Blazers move back to fourth.
Rochester was the first to score in the game with a power-play goal by Craig Point. John Grant got the second goal of the game, while the Blazers remained scoreless in the first quarter.
Sean Morris opened up scoring for Boston with a power-play goal 8:24 into the second. The Knighthawks' Corey Bomberry answered back, but that was the only goal of the quarter for Rochester. The Blazers got three more goals before the end of the quarter to make the score 4-3 at the half.
The Blazers were able to expand their lead quickly, with another goal by Morris. Rochester then came back to take the lead with three unanswered goals before the beginning of the fourth quarter.
During the third quarter, Grant scored with 2:45 remaining to give the Knighthawks a 6-5 lead. The goal was the 411th of his career, and moved Grant ahead of Paul Gait into third place on the league's all-time goal scoring list, trailing only teammate Gary Gait (628) and Buffalo Bandits forward John Tavares (671).
Although the game had significant meaning for Grant, he still focused more on the team play.
"I think our defense is really starting to play well again, and offensively we find if we move the ball we have a better opportunity to score goals. If the ball stays in one stick we seem to struggle and that has kind of what has been our downfall this season... We realized that it happened, the ball got around and we were able to score when we needed to," said Grant.
The final quarter of the game had viewers on the edges of their seats. The Knighthawks scored a quick goal only 21 seconds into the quarter, but Boston came back with two to tie it at seven. Point scored another goal to take the lead, but Kyle Ross quickly answered back for the Blazers to tie the game at eight.
Rochester scored another two before Jamie Rooney scored for the Blazers to make the score 10-8. Boston pulled its goalie to attempt a comeback, but Grant was able to score a behind-the-back goal near the end to make the final score 11-9.
Grant led the game in points with six (3g, 3a), but was followed closely by Point who had four goals.
The win was a milestone for Rochester goalie Pat O'Toole, as it was his 100th win with the Knighthawks.
O'Toole was able to stop 41 of 50 shots and was glad to hit the landmark, but was more excited with the victory.
"It feels pretty good just to get away with a win and obviously it feels pretty good [to get the 100th win], but it was good to get the win at home and make some saves again, and finish a game," said O'Toole.
The Knighthawks goalie thinks that the performance of the team this year is similar to their performance in 2007, when Rochester won the championship.
"This is the kind of effort we had the year we won too. Games we were down, late in the game we found a way to win, so hopefully this is a sign of good things to come. The year we won we went 16-2; we probably didn't deserve to win every one of those games but we just found a way to squeak a win," said O'Toole.
Morris scored three goals for Boston, while both Matt Lyons and Jamie Rooney both finished with two goals and one assist.
Morris thought his team played well and that everyone would look at themselves to see what they could have done better. He accredits O'Toole with a strong performance and understands that you cannot always come out on top.
"It is just kind of a game of inches; sometimes they go, sometimes they don't. I think I played well. Our defense played well, we held an offense like Rochester to eleven goals. Cosmo played great in goal. I just wished we could've executed a few more things," said Morris.
"It was a very tight game and Rochester earned the win."
Morris says the team is not going to let the loss slow them down, as their motto is "Outwork the other team."
The Knighthawks will head to Philadelphia next weekend to take on the Wings at 7pm ET at Wachovia Center. Boston has another road game as it heads to Orlando to face off against the Titans at 7:35pm ET at Amway Arena.
Grant believes that the key for Rochester to have continued success is winning on the road.
"We have got to learn that you can't play an average game on the road and expect to win; that is kind of what we were doing. We were playing average and luckily at home we have been able to get over the hump, so we have got to stay focused. We know we have a hostile building in Philly this week and we know we have got to do everything we can to get a win this week," said Grant.
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