The San Diego Seals were staring down their first loss of the NLL season, until they weren’t.
The projected Western Division leader was trailing 10-3 with one minute to go in the third quarter, despite leading 31-30 in shots on goal, but a miracle 9-0 run catapulted the Seals from a seven-goal deficit to a two-goal lead in a matter of nine minutes.
“I think we probably only played one quarter,” forward Casey Jackson said.
But it was probably the best quarter anybody on the team has ever been a part of.
The first 45 minutes of play, the Seals looked as rusty as one team could be. They consistently left wide open shots that the Rush took advantage of on defense and the offense could not find the net behind Saskatchewan goalie Buque.
Down by six at the end of the third quarter, the veterans rallied the team together and stepped up.
Curtis Dickson, who had two assists in the first three quarters of play, scored his first goal in front of the hometown fans. Then he would add three more goals and two more assists later on, including the golden goal game-winner in overtime.
Dobbie only scored one goal, but made five assists in the final quarter, including the first four goals scored in the quarter.
Fourth-year Seal Wesley Berg scored two goals and assisted six scores, including the game-winning goal in overtime.
“When you’re down by that much, we played a lot freer,” head coach Patrick Merrill said. “We just went for it, we had nothing to lose.”
To begin the fourth quarter, Merrill made the move to bring in backup goalie Chris Origlieri for Frank Scigliano, who had made 20 saves while giving up 10 goals in three quarters.
“No disrespect to Franky at all, but Chris gave us a spark and the boys rallied around him,” Merrill said.
Not only did Origlieri perform well, saving nine of 11 shots, but was a major spark for the offense, seeing him make big save after big save encouraged the offense more to make the comeback for him.
“He’s a young kid and he’s really loved around the locker room,” Jackson said.
Whatever happened during that quarter, hopefully the Seals saved some of that magic for their next games.