Sports Radio Service


		Win needed to snap four-game Stealth skid By Ralph A. Gora March 18, 2005

	SAN JOSE - The San Jose Stealth open their second consecutive home-and-home series on the road against the Calgary Roughnecks. Last week, San Jose dropped two straight to the Arizona Sting. The Stealth open up Friday night's game in Calgary with a four-game losing streak and are now four games below .500 at 3-7. The Stealth have won only one home game and are just a few percentage points ahead of the Anaheim Storm in the NLL Western Division at the start of Friday night's games. The Stealth also face the Roughnecks, who are the defending NLL Champions and playing in the Saddledome. It's no prize to open a home-and-home on the road coming off a four-game slide. The Stealth have had a hard time keeping leads. They had a healthy lead in Arizona last Friday, but let it go in the second half and found themselves in a nip-and-tuck affair with the Sting. The Sting forced the Stealth into an overtime tie scored in the extra period for a 9-8 victory at Glendale Arena. What made things even more frustrating for San Jose was going home to HP Pavilion the next night and having control against the Sting at 6-1 after a quarter. But in the second half, the Sting made a miraculous comeback on the Stealth. When the tally was 10-9, the Sting never looked back in the rear view mirrorm this time wrapping it up with a two-goal margin in regulation, 12-10. Coming into this game Friday night in Calgary, the Stealth lick their wounds and have to aim high. Time is of the essence for the postseason, which starts in the middle of April. The Stealth, including Friday night, have six regular season games left, really needing a miracle and to win every one of them to get into the postseason. The Stealth have been getting great offense early on, but it all falls apart in their previous third quarters. The Stealth are two games into the second half of their season and that time could run out quickly if they drop this game Friday night to the Roughnecks. The Stealth also have had problems on time of possession. Their two previous opponents - the Colorado Mammoth and the Sting - have possessed the ball on the Stealth end in the closing moments and cashed in. The question now is do the Stealth change up their strategy after losing two games in the last home-and- home to the Sting and will the game plan be different against Calgary. "We were really playing well on loose balls. We just have to keep on doing those things, and we held a team like Arizona to 10 goals. You should win to hold up to 11, so that's where we are, working on the offense and, one of these days hopefully they get the message. When we get them all in sync and we start scoring 13 or 14 goals, we can be successful," said Stealth head coach Johnny Mouradian. The ball drops at 6:30 p.m. at the Saddledome. The Stealth need a game plan to hold the lead, or they will be 3-8 coming back to San Jose. The second game will be tougher than you think, especially if you have only one victory at home all season. Ralph Gora covers the press conferences on the San Jose Stealth each week and previews each week's encounter. Ralph for this weekend's home-and-home series with the Roughnecks will be joined by NLL analysts Michael Duca, beat writer Jeremy Harness, and feature writer Gary Araki. Catch all four on the radio on 1430 KVVN San Jose and 1110 KLIB Sacramento.