EVERETT — Leave it to Lewis.
Lewis Ratcliff broke out of his postseason scoring slump with two early goals and added two crucial late scores, and the Washington Stealth overcame a four-goal deficit to capture their first National Lacrosse League Champion’s Cup with a 15-11 victory over the Toronto Rock on Saturday night at Comcast Arena.
Ratcliff, who joked that he was on suicide watch after going goal-less in two previous playoff wins, finished with five goals and added an assist to earn Most-Valuable-Player honors.
“You can’t hold Lewis Ratcliff down,” Stealth head coach Chris Hall said. “He beat himself up a lot the first couple games, so he did a little work and he did a marvelous job, that’s why we got him.”
Ratcliff arrived in December in a trade with Toronto that sent superstar and former Stealth captain Colin Doyle to the Rock.
Doyle finished with two goals and two assists.
“Their offense is incredibly talented … we just never seemed to regain our confidence (after giving away the lead),” Doyle said. “They’re a good team. The wheels came off and we couldn’t put them back on.”
Washington, which moved to Everett last June after a stint in San Jose, Calif., dug out of a four-goal hole with eight straight goals starting with a Peter Morgan tally with 12.8 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
Defenseman Eric Martin followed that with an empty-net goal with 0.2 seconds showing on the clock after Rock head coach Troy Cordingley pulled goaltender Bob Watson for an extra attacker.
Martin intercepted a pass, fired down the floor wide, but hustled to pick up his own rebound and put in a momentum-building goal just before the buzzer, causing the Stealth-record crowd of 8,609 to erupt.
Morgan and Martin’s tallies ignited an eight-goal outburst for the Stealth on the way to the franchise’s first championship and Ratcliff’s second as a player.
“We just needed that quick little momentum switch and the crowd was unreal loud and just picked us up in that fourth quarter and gave us what we needed to keep going,” Ratcliff said.
Forward Rhys Duch scored three goals and added eight assists for Washington, which had to work its way through a tough stretch in the second and third quarters.
“You just got to keep the ball moving, you can’t be selfish and you’ve got to make that extra pass. We did that,” Ratcliff said. “We went away from it a little bit in the middle of the game, but in the third and fourth quarter we were making that extra pass and making the ball do work.”
Ratcliff, who won his first NLL title in 2004 with the Calgary Roughnecks, didn’t alter anything in his game, but said the goals just finally started falling in the season’s most important game.
“It’s been a tough two games. I didn’t do anything different tonight, it’s just the ball was falling tonight,” Ratcliff said. “Balls were going in instead of hitting pipes or missing the net. It felt so good to score that first one.”
Paul Rabil added two goals and helped jump start Washington’s rally with a bull-rush on goal with less than two minutes remaining in the third quarter. Rabil didn’t score, but his intense play helped energize the Stealth.
“You could give the MVP to numerous guys … lots of guys had big nights, it was just my turn,” Ratcliff said.
Goaltender Tyler Richards finished with 50 saves and kept the game from getting out of hand as Toronto took a 6-3 lead in the second quarter.
Toronto netted six unanswered goals in a nearly 15-minute span of the first half. Toronto’s Kasey Beirnes scored three goals in the run as the Rock, the No. 2 seed in the East Division, took the momentum.
It was Washington’s night, however, and the Stealth hoisted their first trophy on a field littered with red confetti.
“To come all the way back and win tonight that’s the ultimate pinnacle,” Hall said, “we couldn’t ask for a more Cinderella season.”
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