Clarke Petterson and Stephen Keough each scored three goals and added two assists as the Halifax Thunderbirds rallied against the Rochester Knighthawks for a 14-12 win in National Lacrosse League action on Saturday night.
The host Thunderbirds, playing in front of more than 5,000 fans at Halifax's Scotiabank Centre, potted the first goal of the game on a strong effort from team captain Cody Jamieson, who finished with two goals and four assists, but the Knighthawks quickly turned the tables and at one point in the first half had a 6-3 edge.
Halifax clawed back to tie it but Rochester's Phil Caputo scored his first of two tallies with just over four seconds left in the half to send his team to the break with a 7-6 edge.
"I thought we started slow," Halifax head coach Mike Accursi said after the match.
"They came out and ran us in the first half and we didn't match the intensity. We settled in. We had a better second quarter and a really good third quarter and I think those were the difference."
Things turned in that third frame when the Thunderbirds came out with an adjusted mindset and poured it on.
The teams traded goals but then Halifax opened up a lead of their own, ending the third quarter with a 12-8 edge on the scoreboard and 42-36 lead in shots on goal.
Petterson, whose first goal of the game was also his first career tally, credited a positive mentality for being able to turn the tide.
"Really good team win," the game's first star said afterward. "We battled back. We were down a couple of goals but we stayed positive on the bench and we kept having that next-play mentality of one loose ball, one shot, one reset, and that will lead to one goal, so that's kind of what we did. We chipped away and we didn't get down, we didn't get negative and we didn't get at each other."
Rochester scored twice to open the fourth but Halifax kept going, mounting to a 14-10 lead. The Knighthawks pressed for a comeback of their own and found two more goals but ran out of time and the Thunderbirds celebrated their second-straight home victory.
Jamieson said it's the nature of the sport to see swings in momentum.
"That's the way lacrosse goes, you know," he said. "Sometimes you're not going to get the bounces right away, but it's a long game. There's a lot of back and forth, you get a lot of possessions, you get a lot of opportunities.
"When you're up, you're up and when you're down, you're down and you try to play in that middle ground where you're not too high, you're not too low and you're just letting the game come to you, you're not really forcing the issue and that's kind of where we found ourselves in that third quarter. Once we got scoring, everybody was up and feeling good and the ball was moving and that's kind of how we want to play."
Graeme Hossack and Ryan Benesch also each scored twice for Halifax, while Austin Shanks and Mike Burke each had one goal.
Hossack said the team has confidence in their offensive capabilities.
"They had a few on us (but) there was no need to panic at that point, there was lots of game left (and) we have a lot of firepower on the front end, so as long as on the back end we keep making our stops where we need to, we know guys are going to put the ball in the net for us."
For Rochester, Dan Litner, Cory Highfield, Shawn Evans, Curtis Knight and Holden Cattoni each had two goals. Singles came from Phil Caputo and Pat Saunders,
The official attendance was 5,278. The Thunderbirds head out on the road for their next game, playing the Buffalo Bandits on Dec. 28.
