While it wasn’t a perfect weekend for the Calgary Roughnecks, they earned a split and more importantly have clinched a playoff berth, the first team to do so in the National Lacrosse League.  Calgary fell 12-10 to Toronto on Friday before a 13-10 win on Saturday over Minnesota.

We’ll start with the game on Friday.  Calgary just wasn’t sharp against the Rock, and it was tough to put a finger on just why that was.  In talking to the guys after the game, it just seemed like they weren’t prepared and didn’t do the things they needed to do consistently.  On far too many occasions, there were let downs on both ends of the floor. 

While Calgary played great defensively in the second half, they were brutal at times in the opening 30 minutes.  For whatever reason, the Riggers couldn’t make an outlet pass work out of their own zone, and it lead to far too many turnovers.  The team admitedly left goalie Matt King out to dry.  Offensively, it just wasn’t clicking throughout…while the Roughnecks mounted a comeback, they were just a step or 2 off all night long.  Passes weren’t working, shots were missing, and balls were popping loose.  It was very odd, but correctable.

And things were corrected on Saturday night.  I think Calgary deserves a ton of credit for their effort in Minnesota.  You knew they were going to be a dog tired team (out of the Dome late on Friday, 8 am flight on Saturday), and they fell behind early.  For the second straight game (and only second time this season), Calgary trailed at half.  However, unlike Friday, Calgary made sure their second half push-back was a sustained one.

After Calgary held serve in the 3rd quarter, they turned up the heat in the final frame and snapped a streak of 5 straight games of being outscored in the 4th.  Calgary would edge Minnesota 6-2 in those final 15 minutes to take control of the game, while Calgary’s defence stayed stingy throughout the entire contest.  It would have been very easy for the Riggers to give in to some fatigue, and come out with a listless second half effort.  That’s not what happened, and that’s why this team remains the top team in the NLL.

An incredible weekend for Kaleb Toth, who finished with 15 points in 2 games.  He had a 5 goal, 8 point effort against Toronto and then followed with a 7 point (2,5) outing against Minnesota.  By far, Toth was the most consistent player over the weekend and gave Calgary continued life when they started to sag.  And his points came at key times…on Friday, his 1st half goals kept Calgary in the game when it could have gotten out of reach with Toronto completely controlling the play.  And on Saturday, he had 4 of his 7 points in the 4th quarter when Calgary needed them the most.  I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.

After the weekend, Josh Sanderson remains the leading scorer on the season with 75 points…right behind him, Toth, Dane Dobbie and Tracey Kelusky all have 64 points.  Solid weekends for Devan Wray, who was great defensively in both games and even scored on Saturday; Nolan Heavenor who was Calgary’s best transition player by far; Scott Carnegie who kept the physical edge sharp in both games; and both goalies, Matt King and Paddy Campbell.

Next up for Calgary, Saturday night against the Rochester Knighthawks on The FAN 960 (7 pm faceoff, 6:30 pm pregame).

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.