Rock Punish Wings in 14-5 Win
January 21, 2023 - National Lacrosse League (NLL)
Toronto Rock News Release
Philadelphia, PA - The Toronto Rock (4-2) were very good from start to finish once again in a 14-5 win over the Philadelphia Wings (2-3) on Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The win was the third in a row for the Rock.
Lacrosse is a game of runs and the visiting Toronto Rock had an incredible 13-0 run in this lacrosse game, cashing in on offence and playing stifling defence on their way to victory. Nick Rose allowed five goals and played just over 56 minutes which was enough to move him into seventh place all-time in NLL minutes played with 8389, moving past Aaron Bold.
"I thought we came out of the gates really good," said Rock Head Coach Matt Sawyer. "Our defence and goaltending set the tone. We want to be relentless and just come at you in waves the whole game. We believe if we play that way, teams are going to have a tough time handling that."
Tom Schreiber scored five goals for the second straight game and added two assists for a third straight seven-point game. Today's performance was a little more special as he did it in front of his daughter Lilly who just celebrated her first birthday last week and was watching her father play live and in person for the very first time.
This game was scoreless for the first 11 minutes before the Wings' Blaze Riorden opened the scoring for Philadelphia. The Rock answered back moments later and the first quarter finished tied 1-1.
In the second quarter, the floodgates opened. It all started from an unlikely source when the Rock's TD Ierlan kept the ball and buried a shot short side on Wings' netminder Zach Higgins. The Rock scored the next six goals with a pair each from Schreiber and Rock captain Challen Rogers to take an 8-1 lead at the half.
Dan Craig scored his second and third goals of the game and Schreiber connected for his third and fourth goals to make it a 4-0 third quarter and stretched the Rock lead to 12-1 after three quarters of play.
Schreiber scored his fifth of the game to open the fourth quarter, it was also his third goal in a row on the scoresheet. It was the last Rock goal in an unbelievably dominant 13-0 run. Philadelphia's Matt Rambo finally broke up the Rock run as the Wings went 35:53 between goals.
The Rock power play was 2-for-4, while the Wings came up empty with the man advantage going 0-for-4.
Rose made 45 saves for his fourth win of the season. Troy Holowchuk came in for the final few minutes and made one save. The Rock outshot Philadelphia 58-51.
The Rock's top draft pick from the 2022 NLL Draft, Josh Dawick (2nd Rd, 28th) made his NLL debut on Saturday afternoon and picked up an assist on Schreiber's first quarter goal.
Toronto will travel to Calgary next weekend to face the Roughnecks at the Scotiabank Saddledome at 9pm ET. It will be the NLL Game of the Week on TSN.
Tickets are on sale now for the Rock's next home game at FirstOntario Centre on Saturday, February 4 against the New York Riptide at 7pm ET.
For more information on tickets, please visit torontorock.com, call the Rock Ticket Office at 416-596-3075 or email us at tickets@torontorock.com.
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