They're down, but not out of the playoff – completely.
A late in the game comeback wasn't enough to snatch victory from the Saskatchewan when they visited Langley Events Centre this weekend.
The Langley-based Vancouver Stealth lost to the Saskatchewan Rush Saturday night by the score of 16-12.
Rhys Duch started the game off on the right foot scoring the opening goal of the contest in the opening minute.
After that, however, Saskatchewan (10-4) scored eight of the next 11 goals.
Then, in the second half, Vancouver stayed on pace with the Rush scoring eight goals in the final 30 minutes, but it wasn't enough to recover the game.
In the loss, Vancouver was led by Cory Conway who had one goal and six assists for his most prolific outing in a Stealth uniform.
And, Duch added three goals and four assists, while Joel McCready was playing through the front gate for the second game in a row and scored three goals and three assists in the loss.
“We played a real decent last 20 minutes. I thought our compete level was a lot higher, we challenged ourselves and got a little gritty, but we need to do that for sixty minutes,” said assistant general manager and head coach Jamie Batley.
“They did exactly what we thought they would do.”
Meanwhile, the Calgary Roughnecks were victorious in their Saturday night game – which leapfrogged them into the final playoff position, bumping out the Stealth.
The Stealth are currently 6-9 in the season.
Next Saturday, April 15, the teams will battle for a playoff game when Calgary visits the Langley Events Centre.
“We need to be grittier and hit harder, we can’t let teams run through our middle,” Batley said.
“Offensively, the last five or six games we have been protecting well against our opposition’s transition and we need to get back to that and refocus our game heading into next week’s game against Calgary.”
Saturday’s game is themed Lacrosse on the Move night, where any youth wearing a minor lacrosse jersey gets inside the Langley Events Centre for free with a paying adult. The game will also be the jersey giveaway night where fans can bid on game-worn player jerseys with all proceeds going to the Lacrosse on the Move Fund.
Spectators can bid on the jerseys.
Tickets for the game are available at the Langley Events Centre Box Office at 604-882-8800 or Ticket Rocket.co.