Stealth suffers yet another late meltdown By Jeremy Harness March 21, 2005     SAN JOSE - Well, another home game for the San Jose Stealth, another fourth-quarter gag job to snatch defeat from the hands of victory. In what is certain to mathematically eliminate them from the playoffs, the Stealth blew another lead and just came up short in the final seconds of a 11-10 defeat at the hands of the Calgary Roughnecks in front of 5,564 at HP Pavilion Saturday night. Meanwhile, the Roughnecks (8-3) clinched a playoff spot with the victory. This loss actually had a different twist to it. Unlike last weekend, when they scooted out to a big early lead against Colorado, the Stealth spotted Calgary a 4-0 lead and looked to blow their Western Division rivals out of the arena early. As regular goalie Anthony Cosmo was yanked due to ineffectiveness in favor of backup Brandon Miller with 5:16 left in the first quarter, the Stealth quickly turned the game around. As Miller blanked the Roughnecks for the rest of the first half, San Jose’s shooters started to find their target, tying the game at 4-4 at the buzzer ending the half on Ted Dowling’s 10-foot shot. Dowling had three goals to lead the Stealth in that category. At the 14:20 mark of the third quarter, the surge continued for San Jose (3-9), when Cam Woods took a beautiful feed from defenseman Eric Martin and bounced it between Calgary goalie Curtis Palidwor’s legs for a 5-4 lead. Seconds later, as the San Jose State marching band played in the stands, Gary Rosyski posted up and threw a shot over his shoulder and into the net for a 6-4 lead. Calgary rallied to tie the game back up on Kaleb Toth’s goal with 2:25 left in the third, but the Stealth scored three goals of their own to boost their lead to three goals. At that time, the Stealth seemed to have a serious psychological edge near the end of the third quarter, when tough-guy defenseman Jim Moss took down forward Jason Wulder right in front of the Stealth goal. Both men were given five-minute penalties, but Moss clearly got the better of it, and the home crowd’s loud cheers indicated that. However, the Roughnecks came back like the defending NLL champs that they are in the final quarter, attacking the Stealth’s faltering defense for four straight goals, including an unassisted goal from Lewis Ratcliff that gave Calgary the lead for good with 5:08 remaining. NOTES: At the end of the third quarter, a male Stealth fan successfully proposed to his girlfriend during a break in the action.

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