By: Tim Yilmaz, Beat Writer New York Lizards
Lacrosse is Awesome
The Lizards began the game without Head Coach Joe Spallina, who was unable to travel with the team due to his playoff bound Stony Brook Women’s Lacrosse Team. Defensive Coach Steve Duffy took over the reins for the night leading the team to a wire to wire rout of the Florida Launch. The defending champs advanced to a 2-0 record following their bye week and forced the Launch to a 0-3 record after the dominant 20-14 win.
The Lizards began the game on a tear by scoring five straight goals. The game kicked off with an unassisted goal by Paul Rabil against former Lizards practice squad member Matt Poillon. Matt Gibson fired right after for another quick but unsuccessful shot. To score his historic 100th career goal in a Lizards uniform, Tommy Palasek fired the game’s next tally mark.
The Launch were able to kick it into gear after an initial goal bouncing off Lizards goalie Drew Adams’ stick. This sparked three straight goals for the Launch including two by second year man Connor Buczek. After a couple great saves by Adams, the Lizards fired back with another goal by Rabil. The goal did not come without some controversy as the Lizards’ star fought through contact to launch a goal that wound up going into the goal and back out. After a delayed response, the call on the field was ruled as a goal and created momentum for Rob Pannell to get his own place in the record books. With his second goal of the game, Pannell tallied the 100th for his own career joining Palasek.
Buczek fired his third goal of the game to get the score to a 7-4 deficit for the Launch but this sparked even more momentum for the competitive Lizards. This led to an amazing turnaround goal by Pannell and two more goals by Gibson before the half ended to get both of them first half hat tricks. In an attempt to build on the Lizards’ lead, face off master Greg Gurenlian won four straight face off attempts. The half ended with a score of 10-4 in the Lizards favor.
The second half started off with another big save by Adams. With one of the highlights of the game, Palasek controlled the ball with only a few seconds left and subtly slipped it over to Rabil who netted another goal as the shot clock expired. This set the Lizards up 11-4. Soon after, Lizards suffered a string of penalties and the Launch capitalized scoring two back-to-back power play goals, led by legendary attackman Casey Powell to cut the score to 11-6. Adams stopped another near goal for the Launch to halt some of the momentum they had picked up.
Not long after the Adams save, the Lizards got a power play of their own and JoJo Marasco was able to take advantage of it with a quick goal from deep to bring the difference back up to six. A pair of consecutive goals by Dave Lawson and Jake Tripucka put the Lizards up 14-6 and was followed by an amazing save by Adams. Adams was slow to get up after the save and was eventually taken out of the game to be looked at by team physicians. He would be substituted out for backup goalie Chris Madalon who conceded a goal to the Launch. Immediately following another Palasek goal, Chris LaPierre scored what would be the final goal of the third quarter off the face off to gain a 16-7 lead.
Within a minute of the start of the fourth quarter, Gibson fired another goal, this time off a power play, for his fourth goal of the night. As the game was getting chippy with both sides voicing irritation with aggressive plays and missed calls, the Lizards were able to pick up another goal to make the game 18-7 with just over 11 minutes left. Gibson scored his fifth goal of the game to match his goal total from week one.
The Launch scored a goal with just under ten minutes left in the game to slow down the Lizards four-goal run but the score still stood at 19-8 in New York’s favor. Defenseman Dylan O’Shaughnessy netted his first MLL Career goal to put the Lizards total at 20. The Launch’s Buczek; Powell; Roman; Lao-Gosney; and Jovan Miller chipped in for a late game surge to score six straight goals to cut the deficit down to 20-14. While the consecutive goals were impressive, it was too late for the Launch.
The Lizards will head to Charlotte to take on the Ohio Machine at Panther Stadium at Ohio Dominican University on Saturday, May 14th.
Tim Yilmaz, Beat Writer New York Lizards
Lacrosse is Awesome