The San Diego Seals played the Vancouver Warriors on Friday night it had been over 600 days since they had last taken the field. Both teams might say they respect each other off the field, but it looked like total hatred on and off the ball for 60 minutes in this battle.

Vancouver’s Mitch Jones (5 goals 1 assist)opened and scored the first goal in nearly 2 years in the NLL at the 1 minute 12 second mark, and both goalies made great save after great save in the first quarter. The Seals had every chance to score, but could not put the ball past the warriors Alex Buque in the first quarter. I have never seen so many soaks by a defense in a game. It was like the Seals were playing Plink-em, trying to shoot through defenders.

In the Second Quarter Seals Dane Dobbie (1 goal 4 assists) dumped one in 1:18 into the second Quarter, Followed quickly by Rookie Tre LeClaire (2 goals 1 assist) scoring at the 3 minute mark. Warriors answered at 10:25 seconds in the second when Kiegan Bal (1 goal 3 assists) dumped one in. Tre LeClaire, not to be outdone, followed it up quickly bringing the score to 3-2 with the Seals ahead. But Zach Greer (1 goal) went down hard after a defensive hit, and with an injury timeout was helped off the field. Mitch Jones Took the ball to the net with 1 second left in the 2nd quarter Scoring his second goal of the night, as the Seals were distracted by their injured teammate.

Wes Berg (1 goal 2 assists) opened up the 3rd with his first score of the season, followed Quickly with scores by Casey Jackson (1 goal 1 assist) and Zach Greer. Before Mitch Jones said nope you’re not running away with this game and put 2 more scores up in the 3rd quarter. To bring it to Seals 6 to Warriors 5 at the end of the 3rd.

Mac O’keefe (1 goal 1 assist) took a shot from downtown and put it past Alex Buque for the final goal by the Seals to open the 4th quarter. The Warriors answered with 3 more goals by Mitch Jones, M.Dinsdale (1 goal 3 assists)and rookie A.Charalambides (1 goal 1 assist).

The final score was Seals 7 Warriors 8.

San Diego Goalie Frank Scigliano had some amazing saves, but seaming gave up the easy shots ending up with a .789 save percentage for the night. Admittedly Frank played much differently after Zach Greer was taken off the field. It was night and day for Frank the Tank in the 4th quarter like many of the losses in the last season the seals played 600+ days ago giving up goals in a run.

The Seals cant play 3 quarters of lacrosse hard and then let up the gas and expect to win. Not in this league, not in this division. Warriors Alex Buque played the best game I have ever seen him play, letting only 7 goals with 53 shots on goal for a .867 save percentage.

Key takeaways from the game 

Mitch Jones is dangerous, going to have to shut him down next time these two teams meet.

Seals showed they can spread the ball around with 6 different Seals Scoring. 

Every single Seal on the floor had at least one loose ball.

Brandon Clelland needs to win more than 6 out of 15 faceoffs.

Rookies Tre LeClaire and Mac O’keefe both scored and put up some interesting numbers in their first NLL game.