1st Overall Pick Dominates in Rock Road Victory
San Diego, CA – The Toronto Rock (2-2) evened their record on the season with a convincing 12-7 win over the San Diego Seals (1-3) on Saturday night at Pechanga Arena in San Diego, California. 2025 NLL first overall pick CJ Kirst scored five goals and added an assist to lead the Rock offensive outburst.
“It started with our goaltending and defence first, just good resolve,” said Rock Head Coach Matt Sawyer. “We fought to find our game, shot ourselves in the foot a few times, but we stuck with it and we played our best down the stretch.”
The Rock were launched out of a cannon and were very physical in the opening moments, unfortunately their aggressive style of play landed Elijah Gash and Bill Hostrawser in the penalty box. The Rock only gave up one goal on the two-man down situation but came out even as Kirst scored his first career shorthanded goal to tie the game 1-1.
Rock Captain Challen Rogers scored a goal worthy of any top 10 list to give Toronto a 2-1 lead early. After being hounded by Seals’ faceoff specialist Trevor Baptiste, Rogers broke free, charged towards the goal from the corner and dove across the crease and pulled the ball back short side to beat Cam Dunkerley in the Seals’ cage. San Diego would score a power play marker and an even strength goal to lead 3-2 after one.
After San Diego scored first in the second quarter to make it three straight goals and jump up by a pair 4-2, the Rock rattled off three straight to lead 5-4 at the half. The most impressive of the run was CJ Kirst’s third goal of the half as he caught a Dan Craig feed righty on the right crease and buried into the San Diego net to give the Rock a one-goal edge at the break.
Josh Dawick scored one of his now patented hands-free outside rips to put his Toronto Rock up 6-4. Tre Leclaire scored back-to-back Seals goals, albeit over eight minutes apart, to tie the game 6-6 with just over a minute left in the third quarter. Two of the Rock’s three stud rookies in Sam English and Owen Hiltz scored in succession in the final minute 40 seconds apart to give the Rock an 8-6 lead at the end of three quarters.
In the fourth quarter, it was the third member of the Rock rookie trifecta, CJ Kirst scoring his fourth of the game to put the visitors up 9-6. Veteran Mark Matthews came through in the clutch to make it 10-6 four minutes later. Zach Currier punched back with a goal for the Seals but Kirst’s fifth and Rogers’ second were the knockout blows as the Rock secured a 12-7 win.
“The word of the day was trust,” explained Kirst. “In our pregame meeting, Dan Dawson wrote it on the board and just told our offence to trust each other and play with confidence and we were able to do that and we trusted each other every step of the way.”
Nick Rose was very good in the Rock win turning in his best performance of the season making 41 saves as the Rock were outshot 48-45. Dunkerley made 33 saves for the Seals.
Rock star defender Latrell Harris was shaken up in the first half and left the game with an upper body injury and did not return.
Toronto’s power play had just two opportunities and came up empty on both occasions. San Diego was 2-for-7 with the man advantage. One bright spot for the Seals was Baptiste’s dominance at the dot winning all 23 faceoffs that took place during the game.
The Toronto Rock will continue this two-game road swing with a game at Rochester on Saturday, January 17 at 7pm at Blue Cross Arena.
For more information on Toronto Rock tickets, please contact a Toronto Rock account executive by phone at 905-426-4744, by email at tickets@torontorock.com or visit torontorock.com.
