Minnesota Swarm (7-6 H 2-4 A 5-2)
	Toronto Rock (7-7 H 4-3 A 3-4)

What Do You Think of the Minnesota Swarm Now?!!!

Saturday, April 1, 2006
St. Paul, Minnesota
Attendance: 10,084

Do you believe? The Minnesota Swarm do. The Swarm had a historic night on Saturday, April 1st, as they came back from a 9-2 deficit with 9:11 to go in the third quarter to beat the defending NLL champions, the Toronto Rock, 10-9. The seven goal deficit was the largest the Swarm have ever come back from in their history. The Xcel Energy Center crowd of 10,084 saw a Swarm team that decided they had enough about listening to how great the veteran Rock were and how inexperienced people said the Swarm were.

The game did not start well for the Swarm, “Brutal” according to #10 Brock Boyle. The Rock rattled off four straight in the first quarter, including one on a power play and another with the extra attacker. The Swarm incurred four minor penalties spread out throughout the quarter which kept the Swarm offense out of sync even with the Swarm getting more shots than the Rock. It wasn’t until 5:45 left in the quarter when #17 Sean Pollock scored the first Swarm goal to make it 4-1 for the Rock. The Rock added one more to end the quarter up 5-1.

By this point, according to Swarm Assistant Head Coach Paul St. John, the Rock’s #7 Colin Doyle, last year NLL MVP, was among many Rock players that were essentially telling the Swarm that the game was over and it was a matter of by how much. A typical NLL game is filled with numerous momentum shifts but Doyle wasn’t sounding as if the Swarm would be getting any momentum anytime soon. Both teams battled each other for the first seven minutes or so of the second quarter without a goal. Even the first of the two big fights of the night, between the Swarm’s #55 Michael Kilby and the Rock’s (former Swarm) #37 Scott Campbell came out as a draw. #19 Chad Culp broke the ice with 7:39 left in the quarter to make it Rock 5-2. The Rock finished the scoring with a goal by #10 Aaron Wilson to send it to the half with a Rock 6-2 lead. The Swarm even being down 6-2 had limited the Rock to only 17 shots in the half and were very aggressive defensively. The problem was the offense couldn’t get it cranked up yet.

The third quarter started badly for the Swarm. Goals by Doyle and #19 Josh Sanderson extended the Rock lead to 8-2 with eleven minutes to go in the quarter. At that point, Swarm Head Coach Adam Mueller pulled starting goaltender #93 Nick Patterson and replaced him with #1 Matt Disher. Immediately, Doyle scored his fourth goal of the game on the first shot Disher faced to make it 9-2 in favor of the Rock with 9:11 to go. By then the Rock were feeling rather invincible. They felt that the upstart Swarm were put in their place. Even when Culp got dumped from behind by Josh Sanderson later in the quarter, Sanderson was definitely was a bit chippy toward the fallen Culp according to St. John.

After #17 Sean Pollock scored his second power play goal of the night with 7:25 left in the quarter to make it Rock 9-3, St. John got the defense together on the bench and asked them, “Do you believe”. They all emphatically said yes. Then St. John told them, “No more goals”. The rally was on. Momentum building. The young, exuberant legs of the Swarm began to wear the veteran Rock down. #77 Riley Kemp scored on a breakaway to cut the lead down to five. Then to finish the half, Kemp and the Rock’s #20 Rusty Kruger started to throw down, When they first started to feel each other out, Boyle got the ball on the breakaway and put the biscuit in the basket by Rock goaltender #29 Bob Watson. No one seemed to notice that Boyle scored to make it 9-5 as Kemp eventually got grabbed Kruger by the legs and pile drove him back into the turf to finish the quarter.

The fourth quarter the Swarm kept on attacking as #15 Spencer Martin made it 9-6 with 12:55 to go. The tide was growing. When #44 Ryan Ward scored from the top of key to make it 9-7 Rock with 7:49 to go, St. John says he knew the Swarm had the Rock right where they wanted them. Martin got his second goal in the quarter to make it 9-8 with 5:50 to go. The Swarm players, coaches and fans were at a fever pitch as the Rock were imploding as they really never have before. The Swarm tied it with 2:48 to go as the blinding fast Boyle got wide open to blow it by Watson. Only a minute and five seconds later, #39 Mark Miyashita, who other than Disher, was the MVP of this game, got the game winner to make it 10-9 Swarm. Pandemonium reigned at the X and that is when Disher turned it up even a few more notches as he made brilliant save after brilliant save as the Rock desperately tried to score to force overtime and save embarrassment. However, Disher drove the dagger in the Rock and the Swarm win 10-9 scoring eight straight to end the game and holding the Rock scoreless for the last 24:11 of the game.

The youthful Swarm who many said were too inexperienced to take on the veteran Rock who have won five of the last seven NLL championship, would wilt before the Rock’s four-headed offensive machine of Doyle, J. Sanderson, Wilson & #16 Blaine Manning. That the class act and loose ball machine #32 Jim Veltman would continually frustrate the Swarm. Well, look at the Swarm now, look at the Swarm now. As General Manager Marty O’Neill said , “Do you still think we need D’arcy Berthiaume and Darryl Gibson (veteran players the Swarm, respectively released or traded to the Rock on March 14th) now? No, I think the Swarm are doing just fine and they are believing.

With this week’s action, the East Division became clear at the top and turned upside down with the four remaining games.

The Buffalo Bandits won on the road in San Jose 11-9 and Arizona 13-10 this weekend to be the first team to clinch a playoff berth in the league.

The Philadelphia Wings beat the Rochester Knighthawks 8-7 last night in Philadelphia.

And we definitely know how the Swarm did against the Rock.

With two weeks to go in the regular season, the East looks like this:

East Division Standings

1. x-Buffalo Bandits 9-4 (2-1 v. Swarm) Swarm lose tiebreaker
2. MINNESOTA SWARM 7-6 (4-6 IN DIVISION)
3. Philadelphia Wings 7-6 (1-2 v. Swarm) Swarm win tiebreaker
4. Rochester Knighthawks 7-7 (2-0 v. Swarm) Swarm lose tiebreaker
5. Toronto Rock 7-7 (Series tied and finished at 1-1)

The Knighthawks and Rock are tied in the season series at one and play each other to finish the season. The Knighthawks are 5-5 in the division while the Rock are 4-5 so the Knighthawks would win the tiebreaker if the season finished right now. That would mean the defending champion Rock would be out of the playoffs. More importantly if the season ended now, the Swarm would be the second seed and WOULD HOST A FIRST ROUND PLAYOFF GAME AT HOME!!!!! A home playoff game for a professional sports team in Minnesota, it could very well happen for the Minnesota Swarm.

#44 Ryan Ward led the Swarm in scoring once again with a goal and four assists. Ward is the Swarm’s leading scorer and is twelfth in league scoring with 16 goals and 42 assists for 58 points. His 58 points is a team record for a year already this season breaking #11 Kelly Hall’s record of 48 last season. His 42 assists is a season team record breaking #40 Jamie Taylor’s record of 27 last season.

#1 Matt Disher made 12 of 13 saves to improve his record to 2-4 this season. With the ten saves by Disher in the crucial fourth quarter, it became the first time the Swarm shut out an opponent in a quarter. #93 Nick Patterson made 12 of 20 saves to start the game.

Other than Ward, the following Swarm scored:

#19 Chad Culp (1g 3a) (Dennis the Menace)
#10 Brock Boyle (2g 0a)
#15 Spencer Martin (2g 0a)
#17 Sean Pollock (2g 0a)
#77 Riley Kemp (1g 1a)
#16 Noah Talbot (0g 2a)
#22 Kasey Beirnes (0g 2a)
#39 Mark Miyashita (1g 0a 15 loose balls 9-21 in face offs)
#1 Matt Disher (0g 1a)
#18 Andrew Biers (0g 1a) First point for the Swarm

The remaining two weeks of the regular season see the Swarm play three games of which the final two are at the Xcel Energy Center.

Saturday April 8th - Rochester Knighthawks at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester at 6:35 pm CST.

Sunday April 9th - San Jose Stealth at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul , Minnesota at 5:00 pm CST.

Saturday April 15th - Portland Lumberjax at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota at 7:00 pm CST.

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