For 45 minutes, the Vancouver Stealth went back-and-forth with the top team in the National Lacrosse League.
Unfortunately for the Stealth, the game is 60 minutes long.
Vancouver was at the Sasktel Centre in Saskatoon on Saturday night in National Lacrosse League action, dropping a 16-10 decision to the Saskatchewan Rush, who improved to 10-2. The Stealth fell to 1-11 with the defeat.
The team had a great start, leading 3-1 less than six minutes in but the Rush would pull ahead at the end of the first quarter, 5-4, and then outscore the Vancouver visitors 5-0 in the second quarter.
The Stealth would play the Rush to a standstill, 6-6 in the second half, but could not cut into the six-goal deficit in losing for the 10th time in 11 games.
“We had a bad second quarter where they beat us 5-0 and that is the tale of the tape,” said head coach and assistant general manager Jamie Batley.
“They were five for seven on the power play. If you give them one chance on the power play they will score.”
Corey Small had one goal and five assists, Rhys Duch added one goal and three assists, Joel McCready, Tony Malcom and Pat Saunders each had two goals and an assist and Matt Beers and Brandon Clelland had the other markers.
Vancouver is off this week and they host the Colorado Mammoth on March 17 at the Langley Events Centre.
Despite the struggles, Batley said his team will not quit.
“We are not out of the playoffs, as we are only a couple wins away from catching Calgary,” Batley. “We have a couple games against Calgary and Colorado, so we need to win these divisional games. By no means are we throwing the towel in. We believe in the players in our dressing room and in two weeks we need to beat Colorado.”
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