Goalie Nick Rose scores to seal Toronto Rock's first win of the season, beating Buffalo Bandits 14-12

TORONTO - The Toronto Rock got their first win of the National Lacrosse League season in dramatic fashion as Nick Rose capped the scoring in a 14-12 win over the Buffalo Bandits with the first goal by a Rock goaltender in franchise history.

Toronto had lost its first six games but was up 13-11 in this one when Rose got the ball in his stick. A team must get the ball to centre within eight seconds and the seconds were ticking away Friday night. He looked for a teammate to pass to.

“I looked right and there was nobody there,” Rose said afterwards. “Then I looked left and there was nobody there.”

So he tossed the ball towards the Buffalo net, which was empty after an extra attacker had been sent on. It bounced in. Rose raised his arms in celebration and his teammates ran to his crease to congratulate him. Rock fans in the Air Canada Centre crowd of 7,837 went nuts.

“That was an awesome moment,” he said. “I’m happy we were able to seal the deal.”

Rob Hellyer and Kasey Beirnes scored three goals each, Stephan Leblanc and Dan Lintner got two each and Rose, making his third start in the nets this season, Josh Sanderson, Jesse Gamble and Colin Doyle added one each for the Rock.

“I could feel it among the boys that there wasn’t going to be any heartbreak (Friday night),” Rose said. “We’ve had some bad bounces so far this year. We weren’t going to let that happen again.”

League scoring leader Dhane Smith scored four goals, Ryan Benesch three, Anthony Malcolm two and Mark Steenhuis, Daryl Veltman and Alex Kedoh Hill one each for the Bandits, 4-3, who relinquished their share of first place in the NLL East with idle New England, 4-2.

Buffalo led 2-0 after one quarter and 6-5 after two. It was 9-9 after three.

Hellyer wiggled past Mitch Jones for a clear path to the net and shot over goalie Davide DiRuscio’s right shoulder at 9:10 of the fourth to give Toronto a 12-11 lead.

Buffalo’s Mark Steenhuis was penalized for goaltender interference and Sanderson whipped in a low sidearm shot to make it 13-11 on the power play at 11:08.

Rose got the 14^th Toronto goal, and a standing ovation.

“I’m glad our fans are still behind us,” he said. “They were great _ loud and proud. That’s what we need going forward.”

It was the first of five consecutive home game.

“I know we started 0-6 but its such a hero-to-zero, zero-to-hero league that anybody can win,” said Rose. “We feel we should have three wins already this season so we’ll continue to give it all we’ve got. We’ve got some games in a row at home now so we’ll feed off the fans and hopefully gets ourselves back in the mix.”

Jamie Dawick was one relieved owner-GM.

“Finally,” he said. “We played well. We got some great, timely goaltending. The defence played well and the offence kept doing what they’ve been doing the last couple of games. That win was huge. (Losing) has been painful.”

Head coach John Lovell never questioned his players’ work ethic.

“I had the feeling that if we kept the second effort up we had a chance,” he said.

There’s a long way to go.

“We know we’ve dug ourselves an incredible hole,” said Lovell. “And that win is just a start. But you have to win one to get two so we’ll just go from here. We haven’t lost faith and we’ve been working just as hard in practice as we always have. There’s no quit in there.”