EDMONTON - The Edmonton Rush had their sights set on a milestone victory Saturday.
What they ended up with instead was a beating they'll remember for a while.
Dan Dawson led the way with five goals and two assists as the Boston Blazers jumped out to a big lead at the half and never looked back, handing the Edmonton Rush an embarrassing 12-5 loss on Saturday night.
Gary Bining had four goals, Brenden Thenhaus a pair and Daryl Veltman one for the Blazers (6-5), who moved into a second place tie with Toronto in the National Lacrosse League's East Division, a half-game back of Orlando.
Andy Secore had four goals and Ian Crashley added a single for the Rush (6-4), who had their three-game winning streak halted. Edmonton missed out on a chance to move into a first-place overall tie with Washington, and to set a new franchise high for wins in a season.
"You can never get ahead of yourself and take a night off thinking you can win without paying a price for it in this league," said Edmonton head coach Derek Keenan. "It was embarrassing. You never want to get beat at home like that. They beat us in every aspect of the game. We may have six wins but our losses have been bad.
"I thought we were over that hump but evidently we are not."
Secore said nothing went right for the Rush.
"We came out real flat, even in our warm-up," he said. "Nothing was going for us tonight and it showed on the floor."
Dawson said his team had added incentive following an OT loss to the Buffalo Bandits last weekend.
"We were fired up for this game," Dawson said. (The loss to Buffalo) really sparked our team. We were up 7-4 on them and let it get away.
"We talked about great teams knowing how to finish off a team when it is down and we did that tonight. We never let them back into the game. Every aspect of the game was clicking tonight."
Blazers head coach Tom Ryan said an effort like this one came at a good time in the season.
"It was a really important win for us," he said. "Our last loss shook our confidence a little bit so it was really important that we responded and have a solid 60 minutes. It was a big confidence boost for us."
Boston jumped out to a 3-1 lead nine minutes into the game as Dawson beat Rush goalie Matt Disher for the two-goal edge, building on earlier tallies by Veltman and Bining, who would make it 4-1 two minutes later with his second of the contest.
Secore scored Edmonton's only first-quarter goal, beating Blazers netminder Anthony Cosmo.
The Rush scored their first goal in nearly a full quarter of play as Secore converted his second on the power play three minutes into the second quarter to cut the lead to 4-2.
Boston regained its three-goal edge on another Dawson goal five minutes into the second, but shortly afterwards lost assistant captain and transition player Kyle Ross to a litany of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, including a game misconduct.
The Blazers made it a four-goal game a couple minutes later on a Thenhaus goal and looked like they should have gone up by five when Dawson put a ball into the net from his stomach after being tackled in front of the net. The goal was disallowed because his elbow touched down before it bounced in.
Dawson got his hat trick goal with two minutes left in the first half to make it 7-2. Cosmo won the goaltending duel comfortably in the opening half, with 18 saves on 20 shots.
Boston resumed the rout midway through the third, scoring twice to chase Disher from the Rush net.
Brandon Atherton didn't fare much better, quickly allowing a diving goal from Dawson to make it 10-2.
Edmonton finally got back on the scoreboard with two minutes left in the third on a goal by Crashley before Secore converted his hat trick goal with just four seconds left, making it 10-4 heading into the fourth.
The Rush resurgence was short-lived, however, as Boston bounced right back with Dawson's fifth of the game early in the final quarter and Bining put home his fourth on a power play eight minutes in to make it 12-4.
Secore got his fourth on a late penalty shot to complete the scoring.
Both teams are off until next Saturday when the Rush will host the Minnesota Swarm and the Blazers will travel to Philadelphia.
Notes: It was the first ever meeting between the two teams. ... The Rush were only playing their fourth home game of the season, the fewest home appearances this season by any NLL team. ... The Rush are the only team in the league with a winning record that has allowed more goals than they've scored. ... Newly acquired forward Mat Giles made his debut for Boston after coming over in a trade deadline deal with Philadelphia for transition man Dave Cutten and a second round pick. Giles came into the game with 31 points on the season. ... Boston has the league's worst power play, coming in at a lowly 28.1 per cent. ... Rush strength and conditioning coach Randy Couture, a former UFC world heavyweight and light heavyweight champion, was a special guest for the match.