ALBANY, NY (March 19, 2022) – At halftime, things looked bleak. The Albany FireWolves held a commanding 8-4 lead. Team leader and goaltending stalwart Mike Poulin was pulled halfway through the second quarter after a flurry of FireWolves goals. Georgia’s offense was as out-of-sync as Dale Dobeck’s drum solo at the #%*&-ing Catalina Wine Mixer.
And then, it happened.
It being a 9-3 Georgia Swarm explosion, punctuated by a 6-2 advantage in the fourth quarter. It being a late third quarter Lyle Thompson hat trick that jump-started a 5-goal, 9-point performance at the lacrosse legend’s old stomping grounds. It being backup goalie Craig Wende stopping 22 of 27 FireWolves’ shots in two-and-a-half quarters to seal an epic 15-12 comeback win that put Georgia (7-6) over .500 for the first time this season and sealed the season series over Albany (6-8), two games to one.
There were more storylines to count in this one:
It all added up to a Swarm team that took a punch – no, make that a haymaker – early on, then picked itself up off the mat to methodically pummel its opponent into submission.
It was the type of performance that teams look back to after magical seasons as the fulcrum on which a season turned. Maybe that inflection point was last week’s 10-9 slugfest over Halifax. But my money’s on tonight – the final magical 45 minutes of this one seemed even more special for the boys in white and blue.
Two MVP candidates squared off with their own battle within the war, as Joe Resetarits notched a first-half hat trick and briefly climbed past Lyle Thompson for the NLL lead in goals. But the prolific FireWolves forward was quiet in the second half as Thompson mounted his surreal attack on the Albany defense. Thompson’s 5 goals give him 39 on the year, leading the League, while Resetarits trails him in second place with 36.
More importantly, the win gave the Swarm an even stronger foothold on a playoff spot, a game-and-a-half (and a head-to-head tiebreaker) ahead of Albany and just a game-and-a-half behind the 8-4 Toronto Rock, who happen to comprise the next two games on Georgia’s schedule.
The Swarm still hold the #4 playoff seed in the East Division with 5 games remaining on the 2021-22 slate, but upcoming games against Toronto provide an opportunity to improve on that seeding.
Certainly, if the Swarm play the way they did in the second half at MVP Arena in Albany tonight, there aren’t many teams who can stop them.