Chrome Escape With Emotional Win Over Redwoods

By Doug Greenberg | Jul 29, 2020

Well, that was fun.

In a game where tensions were clearly running high, Redwoods fought back after falling into a deep hole, but Chrome would ultimately emerge victorious by a final score of 12-11.

Breakdown

This game began as a stout defensive battle. Sergio Perkovic got on the board first with a signature overhand rip, but after that scoring was scarce in the first quarter. Ned Crotty finally struck back with about three minutes left in the quarter, scoring on a nice move from X. Not to be outdone, veteran Kyle Harrison responded with a beautiful bounce shot coming from X. That would be all the scoring in the first quarter.

Kyle Harrison drinks from the fountain of youth 😂 pic.twitter.com/W5QqaPZ8UA
— Premier Lacrosse League (@PremierLacrosse) July 29, 2020

Emotions started to run high in the second quarter. Connor Farrell, who won 64 percent of his faceoffs in the first half and for the entire game, tilted the field for Chrome and they took advantage. Jordan Wolf got his first of the game with a well-executed jump shot, then Eli Salama extended the lead with a two-point screamer in transition.

Two Bomb from @EliSalama! pic.twitter.com/e98iCGlmqB
— Premier Lacrosse League (@PremierLacrosse) July 29, 2020

From here, things got dicey. Everyone wondered how the league would respond to Matt Gaudet’s verbal aggression against Chaos on Saturday and Redwoods came out swinging for him. The Joker, as he’s started to be known, drew a hard push midway through the period, and then got crunched by Garrett Epple, who would continue the punishment while Gaudet was on the ground, drawing a two-minute lockdown penalty.

But Gaudet would get the last laugh. The man-ups from the penalties he drew yielded three goals; one from Jesse King on the first powerplay, followed by scores from Wolf and Jordan MacIntosh in the final minute of the quarter. When it was all said and done, Chrome would go into halftime with a 10-4 lead having won the second quarter 9-2.

While tensions must have ran high in the Redwoods locker room, Nat St. Laurent was able to keep his team mentally and tactically in it. Following a quick Chrome goal from Crotty, Myles Jones made his presence felt with a strong rollback score.

.@MylesJones_15 is too strong 😤 pic.twitter.com/GVOn1pS2Tf
— Premier Lacrosse League (@PremierLacrosse) July 29, 2020

Ryder Garnsey would follow it up with his second goal of the night and Championship Series. Moving into the final quarter, Perkovic fired a laser from two-point range to get Woods back within three, then Brendan Gleason made a slick move from X to cut the deficit to two.

This looked to have all the making of a classic lacrosse comeback, but Jesse King would not let it be so; he buried a lefty rip to extend the lead back to three with limited time left. Perkovic, finishing the night with five points, put away another two-bomb with 10.8 seconds remaining, but it would be too little too late, as Chrome would escape with the win.

Ramifications

There is no understating how huge this win is for Chrome, not just from a statistical standpoint, but also an emotional one: this team won two games all last season, and they begin the Championship Series by matching that total without dropping a game. They’ll look to carry this momentum into Thursday’s 9:30 PM ET matchup with Archers.

As for Redwoods, this is a big blow for a team that had big aspirations coming into the tournament. That said, this team has a never-say-die mentality, and they’ll need every ounce of it when they face Chaos on Wednesday at 11 PM ET.