Last night three Washington sports teams were playing. And all three of them won. The Caps and the Wizards were in playoff games. The Nats were playing the hated Cardinals. The Wizards won going away 117-106 against the Raptors and are up in their series 2-0.
The Caps and the Nats needed extra time to accomplish the feat.
If the Caps had lost they would have been only one loss away from being elimiated by the Islanders. Instead, with the win, they have tied the series 2-2. From the Post:
More than 11 minutes into another extra period inside this thundering building against the New York Islanders, Backstrom had gathered the puck along the half wall, his back to the net, and surged into the middle. Forward John Tavares, the man who needed only 15 seconds of overtime to tilt Game 3 in the Islanders’ favor, had fumbled his stick, so Backstrom found a sliver of space, rocked onto his heels and fired. The puck hissed around teammate Joel Ward, who again had screened goaltender Jaroslav Halak in traffic. Soon, the complexion of these Eastern Conference quarterfinals — and really, the Capitals’ season — would finally swing in their favor.
The Nats need ten innings to finish off the Cardinals. They came very close to winning in the bottom of the night with bases loaded and one out. But could not get the winning run across the plate. So it was on to the tenth.
After a tense, back-and-forth game that featured a lot of base runners but few runs, Escobar knew the situation well. He knew that Cardinals reliever Carlos Villanueva, a former Toronto Blue Jays teammate, was going to try to get ahead in the count. So Escobar sent a first-pitch inside fastball with two outs over the left field fence. And after he rounded third base and tossed his helmet to the side, Escobar curiously slid headfirst into home plate under the mob of jumping, Gatorade-throwing teammates.
Here was the time line for the Washington Trifecta
At around 10:39, the Caps topped the Islanders on Backstrom’s overtime goal to even their first-round playoff series at two games apiece. Perhaps two minutes later, Wall and the Wizards finished off a surprising blowout of the Raptors to take a 2-0 lead in their own first-round series. This was the first time both franchises had ever — ever — won playoff games on the same night. And at Nats Park, the anticipation for something special grew.
Ten minutes later, Yunel Escobar blasted a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 10th, pushing the Nats past the Cardinals, the villains from Washington’s brutal playoff disappointment in 2012. Escobar slid headfirst into home. Fans around the area hugged, laughed and screamed. All of this was too much happiness.
Certainly a great night to be a sports fan in Washington, DC.
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