The Calgary Roughnecks never trailed on way to a 9-8 win over the Vancouver Stealth in a scrimmage on Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre.

Calgary scored six times in the second quarter, which was enough for the team to pace themselves on offense.

“We played a real fast game and I liked the way we started,” said Roughnecks head coach Curt Malawsky. “We sagged a little in the fourth quarter and they came back. We wound up on the PK a couple times and they were able to score some goals, but the main thing is we got the result in the end.”

Veteran Dane Dobbie scored twice in the first quarter as the Roughnecks led 2-1 after 15 minutes.

He completed his hat trick in the second quarter, and was joined by Geoff Snider, Pete McFetridge, Daryl Veltman, Tor Reinholdt and Matthew Dinsdale in finding the back of the net.

It was Reinholdt’s, the Roughnecks first round draft pick from last year, first pre-season goal in the NLL.

“Everyone on the team battled hard,” Reinholdt said. “We had lots of gritty loose balls. Everyone ran, especially the young guys ran hard. Everyone is trying to earn their spot.”

Fellow rookies Karsen Leung and Garett McIntosh also caught the eye of coach Malawsky during the game.

“I thought all our draft picks played very, very well, particularly Garrett McIntosh. He soaked up some shots back in the d-end. He ran over some guys and was very physical. He lived up to the expectation of 6-foot-2, 235, so we’re happy with that,” Malawsky said. “Tor Reinholdt and Karsen Leung were just as advertised and pushed the transition.”

Dinsdale scored his second of the night in the second half, while the Stealth launched a comeback but fell short by one goal.

At the end of the game, Malawsky was still impressed with his team’s development.

“The athleticism really showed through and we were hoping for that from the coaches’ perspective. Coach (Bruce) Codd was very impressed with the guys pushing the ball out of the backend. They are young guys so they are going to make some mistakes so we just have to live with those. I thought our veteran guys did a very good job. Our defence was phenomenal in the first half.”

The Roughnecks play two more scrimmages next weekend versus the Minnesota Swarm and Rochester Knighthawks before deciding their final roster.

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