April 3, 2010
Blazers can't sweep past Titans
by Phillip Shore/
For the Orlando Titans, the third time was a charm.
After the Boston Blazers won the first two meetings of the season between the teams, the Eastern Conference-leading Titans were able to salvage a victory, winning, 13-10, at TD Garden Saturday night.
“I thought [the game] had a real good playoff feel,” said Titans coach Ed Comeau. “We really wanted to come here and, I won’t say seek revenge because that’s not the right word, but we wanted to come here and play a full game and I believe we were pretty close to doing that.”
Orlando jumped out early to a 6-2 lead through the first quarter and a half, but the Blazers came to life with 6:30 left in the second quarter, scoring four unanswered goals to tie the score.
Mat Giles started things off at the 8:30 mark, the first goal by the Blazers in 13:30, followed by a score from Jamie Rooney with just more than 2:30 left. Dan Dawson and Gary Bining added tallies with less than a minute left.
The comeback was a product of getting goals in transition. Three times Boston scored off of fast breaks with the pass coming from the top left corner to a player streaking towards the goal from the team’s bench.
Momentum would not be carried over into the second half however.
“We were getting a lot of goals in the second quarter off transition and stuff, and they made some adjustments that sort of shut that down for us,” said Giles, who had two goals and an assist. “We weren’t getting the same looks.”
The teams went back and forth in the third quarter, exchanging three goals apiece. Dawson scored the Blazers’ ninth goal off a high-light reel trick shot. Dawson collected a pass from Ryan Hotaling with his back to the goal, spun to the cage, and with a defender hanging on his back, threw the ball between his legs.
“Sometimes you’re lucky the ball goes in for you. It’s something I mess around with in practice,” said the captain, who had five goals and two assists. “There are some times the goalie will overplay your strong-side so you can throw behind the back or a between-the-legs shot ... your instinct does kick in, and that’s what happened out there.”
Boston looked to have the upper hand when Dawson scored his fifth goal of the night 29 seconds into the quarter but Orlando kept fighting and put four unanswered goals past Anthony Cosmo to pull away.
The Blazers are on their first losing streak after starting the season off 0-3. After the game, coach Tom Ryan frustration with his team was evident.
“I think we’ve got some guys in our locker room that are dedicated to this 100 percent and they responded,” he said. “Some guys, I’m not sure if they really care enough about this team to be a part of it. It was a little bit surprising.”
Dawson echoed his coach’s feelings about the team’s attitude.
“There are definitely guys in our dressing room that are coasting. We’re 6-7. We haven’t done anything in this league yet,” he said. “We were bounced in the first round of the playoffs last year so I have no idea why we are coasting right now and we need everyone on board.”
The Blazers will try to get the entire team on the same page April 10, when they host the Minnesota Swarm at TD Garden in their final home game of the season.
