Hearing the final buzzer sound at SaskTel Centre on Saturday night, Saskatchewan Rush goaltender Frank Scigliano turned to the crowd and took part in what’s become a time-honoured tradition for the team.
That being a steady pounding of his chest, celebrating a win which Rush fans have been working years towards.
“When I’m back home and sometimes I’m feeding my baby a bottle I’ll go, ‘Pound your chest Saskatchewan,’” said Scigliano. “I’m doing the hand thing with her and my wife is giving me a hard time.”
The Rush gave fans a lot of reasons to pound their chests on Saturday, moving on to the National Lacrosse League semi-finals with a 13-9 victory over the visiting Georgia Swarm.
Saskatchewan’s quarter-final victory over the Swarm not only has kept their season alive, but marked the franchise’s first post-season victory since winning an NLL championship in 2018 and their first playoff game in general since 2019.
“Six years is a long time for a team not to be in the playoffs,” said Scigliano. “Obviously I wasn’t here for all of that but to be part of the disappointment last year and to see how far we’ve grown over the last year, it’s nice to feel and we’re a confident bunch.”
Trailing 2-0 to the Swarm to begin the game, the Rush were able to get six goals from six different goal scorers in the opening half to take a 6-3 lead into the break.
Saskatchewan successfully fended off pressure from Georgia over the second half, with the Swarm unable to tie the game up from the first quarter onward.
Transition threat Jake Boudreau had one of the best offensive games of his professional career Saturday, leading the team with four goals and five points on the night with even more chances off the rush.
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“It would have sucked to work hard all year and lose [Saturday],” said Boudreau. “You can kind of tell we played with everything we had. We want to enjoy the fruits of our labour and they’re still not ready to be picked yet.”
Finishing the night with 39 saves, Scigliano came through with some monster saves in the second half to keep the Rush in the lead, including an aerobatic stop with his stick on a rebound chance for Swarm forward Shayne Jackson.
“Someone was watching out for me,” said Scigliano. “You always like to try and track the ball the best you could. I made a save and I saw the rebound end up right on his stick, I kind of threw my stick up there. Luckily, I was able to get a piece of it.”
That save came just minutes after the Rush were dealt a five-minute major penalty for forward Clark Walter on an illegal cross-check, which Georgia scored on immediately.
However, Saskatchewan was able to lock down defensively for the remainder of the penalty kill and even got a shorthanded marker from Austin Shanks to bring momentum back to their side.
“We blocked shots, we knocked down passes, Frank made a couple of saves,” said Rush co-head coach and general manager Derek Keenan. “We got the shorthanded goal and towards the end, they got [a penalty] and evened it up. It’s just guys putting their bodies on the line.”
Saskatchewan’s win sets up a best-of-three semi-final series against the Halifax Thunderbirds, which will begin next Saturday on the East Coast for Game 1.
With the 4,300 kilometres separating the two teams, and even more for the British Columbia players flying in, Keenan said the Rush will be heading to Nova Scotia early to get themselves acclimatized before the first game of the series.
“We’re going to go in a day early,” said Keenan. “We’ll be prepared, get a good practice in and it will be a lot better for us. We’ll come back here the next week, and if it goes three [games], we’re going to have two here and we earned that. We earned that second-place position.”
Halifax has been a thorn in the side of the Rush for the last several years, with the Thunderbirds handing Saskatchewan a 17-9 loss on March 14 in their final game of their regular season series.
Battling one of the top offensive groups across the entire NLL, Boudreau said it’s a perfect opponent for the Rush to raise their level of play against.
“The path we’re going to take if we’re going to make it to the championship it would be good for us to beat them,” said Boudreau. “To prove to ourselves that they’re not better than us and that we can play with them.”
Game 1 between the Rush and Thunderbirds will be played on May 3 at 4:30 p.m., with the series shifting to Saskatchewan for Game 2 and, if needed, Game 3 the following weekend.
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