The largest crowd in indoor box lacrosse history waved towels and cheered ecstatically as Colin Doyle's five goals lifted the Toronto Rock to a 19-13 win over the game (but overmatched) Arizona Sting in the 2005 NLL Champions Cup Final Saturday afternoon at Air Canada Centre.

It is the Rock's fifth title win in just seven seasons, and the first for head coach and general manager Terry Sanderson, who did a brilliant job this season of reshaping and refocusing his team.

Aaron Wilson, Blaine Manning and Josh Sanderson fired two goals each for the champs. Craig Conn and Jonas Derks -- the two crucial mid-season pick-ups for Coach/GM of the Year Bob Hamley -- led Arizona with three goals apiece.

The spotlight, as it often does in title games, was heavily on the goaltenders. The aging master, Bob Watson for the Rock, taking on The Wall, Mike Miron for Arizona. And Miron, with all the pressure on him, got off to a good start. An early three-shot flurry from the Rock ended goalpost, foot save, shoulder stop.

Conn opened the scoring, putting Arizona up a goal after being sprung home-free down the middle by a long a splendid pump pass from Cory Bomberry at 2:28. Miron then stood up to, and stopped, Doyle point-blank. At the other end, Watson cooked up a fine leg save on Lindsay Plunkett, and then Dan Dawson rang one off the goalpost.

Chris Seller single-handedly doubled the Sting lead, snagging a rebound and getting it done on a long short-handed counterbreak at 7:34.

Good tempo and continuity for Arizona, but it got short-circuited when Derks took the bait from an ultra-pesky Patrick Merrill, and got himself binned for a totally unnecessary high-sticking call. It didn't take long for Aaron Wilson to cash in Derks' generosity, dumping one past Miron on the run off a tasty crossing pass from Doyle.

Three more goals were scored in quick succession, but none on the power play as a penalty to Phil Sanderson evened up the sides. Matt Shearer beat Miron point-blank to tie the game. Dan Dawson restored Arizona's lead with a head-on forty-footer, but Shearer struck again with a wicked bouncer to knot the game at three.

Doyle soon put the Rock ahead for the first time, with a long bouncer, low to the post, just as Derks' penalty expired.

4-3 Toronto after one.

The Sting needed less than two minutes to get back in front. Conn got it going a minute in, cutting into the slot and ripping one past Watson from thirty feet out. Dawson followed, freezing the Rock goalie with a running dipsy-doodle fake on the doorstep.

Two quick goals from Josh Sanderson soon restored Toronto's lead. On the first, he snagged allose ball on the dead runk, turned and blazed one past Miron to the far top corner. The second, at 8:02, found the net through a veritable multiplex of screens.

Miron then shut down Rock defender John Rosa on a breakaway. At the other end, Conn tied the game 6-6 with a smoking forty-foot muscle job at 9:11.

And that's when the Rock pulled ahead -- to stay, as it turned out -- with four quick goals to close out the half.

The first was really special. Doyle vacuumed up a rebound, tried to send his stick high up over Miron, found the way blocked, pulled back, snuck his stickhead behind the Sting goalie, and zipped the ball into the net.

Wilson followed with a quick pair, bursting through the defence for one, then cashing in a thirty-foot bounce job for the next. Doyle closed out the half with running top-corner stuff.

10-6 Rock at the half.

Really, that looked like it was going to be it. But Arizona rallied hard off the restart, and made a game of it again throughout the third quarter.

Jonas Derks led the way. His first was a darting power-play doorstep redirect. Blaine Manning cancelled that one out for the Rock with a sloppy, optional blooper through traffic at 1:13. But then Derks struck twice more -- a screened bouncer, followed by a good low scooting rip -- to complete a natural hat trick in under five minutes, cutting the Toronto lead to 11-9.

Josh Sanderson perfectly showcased the Rock's strategy for beating Miron when he marshmallowed home a soft running looper at 6:09.

Again, the Sting rallied back. Cory Bomberry bagged his only marker of the night, cashing in a perfectly timed crossing pass from Jason Clark. Two minutes later, Miron served up a fine pass, springing Chris Seller who beat Watson low to the corner on the counterbreak at 8:52.

Then Josh Sanderson chased a loose ball along the end boards behind the Arizona goal. He barely controlled it, but got enough to flip it to Doyle, who buried it from just off the post. Seller came right back with another breakaway for the Sting, but this time Watson shut him down.

13-11 Toronto after three.

Four unanswered goals and thirteen minutes of shutout lacrosse won the Champions Cup for the Rock in the fourth.

Manning muscled his way to mid-slot to open the outburst at 2:07. Doyle hit for the fifth time at 3:14, a low running diagonal rip. Sandy Chapman got into the act, beautifully, with a gorgeous crossing-run pick of the top corner at 5:17. Manning brought the entire crowd to its feet when he flew Miron's crease to score at 9:11.

Pat Maddalena answered with a pair of goals, trying to rally Arizona back into the chase single-handedly. The first came after back-up goalie Mike Montour, racing off the bench after a lost ball on the goalie pull, forced a streaking John Rosa to hit the post. Maddalena's second was a leaping twenty-five footer from the shooter spot at 13:21.

But that was the end of Arizona's bid. Two successive empty-net goals from Jim Veltman sealed the deal.

NOTES:

The win was overshadowed by the imminent passing of original Rock coach Les Bartley, of cancer. Much has already been written about this great, great lacrosse man. For now, I just want to close by saying that the dream Les Bartley began lives on, now, in Terry Sanderson's team.

The Rock have won five titles in just seven seasons, one of the all-time great runs in all of North American sport. They won the first four with the greatest coach alive. They won the fifth with the man who inherited that title just one day after winning it all for the very first time.

The new dynasty starts now. The Toronto Rock will be very hard to beat in 2006.

Signing off and standing down, yours in lacrosse, Ben.

Ben Knight is lacrosse and soccer columnist for Sportsnet.ca. He plans to spend part of the summer pursuing royalties from the expansion Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights of the American Hockey League.