Mohegan — The last act for the New England Black Wolves was a 10-7 loss to the Toronto Rock on Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena, completing an inaugural National Lacrosse League home season that ended with seven straight losses.

But then, there was more.

Black Wolves head coach Blane Harrison announced following the game that he will resign following today's season-finale at Buffalo for personal reasons. A resident of Hackettstown, N.J., Harrison and his wife Dawn will be moving to Michigan.

“I'll miss the guys,” said Harrison, the second-year coach of the Wolves (formerly the Philadelphia Wings) and a fixture in lacrosse since his playing days for the Canadian National Team. “They become kind of your sons, good bad and ugly.”

The affable Harrison, whose press conferences always include a little bit everything, marked his final home press conference with applause for the fans who flooded the Sun this season, 3,514 of them Friday night who still howled when prompted and heartily booed the referees.

“Fan is short for fanatic. And not that people are crazy fanatics, but they were lacrosse fans,” Harrison said. “They never booed and we had some stinkers. They saw it all. There was fights, good lacrosse, bad lacrosse … hopefully it will germinate. Unfortunately, we didn't hold up our end of the bargain.”

And Harrison took the referees to task for what he called “ticky-tack” fouls which he believes cost his team the game.

“I honestly thought the difference in the game was the referees,” Harrison said. “There was some nice lacrosse on both sides. It should have been a showcase for our fans, the last game of the year.”

Meanwhile, the game was much like the season for the Black Wolves (4-13), an uphill battle.

Brett Hickey finished with four goals and an assist for Toronto (14-4), which clinched the NLL's East Division title, the top overall seed in the upcoming Champion's Cup Playoffs and a first-round playoff bye all with the victory.

The Black Wolves scored just 12 seconds into the game on a goal by Kevin Buchanan and led 2-1 with 5 minutes, 48 seconds to play in the first quarter on a goal by Garrett Billings.

But Toronto tied the score at 2 on a goal by Kasey Beirnes with 1:50 to go in the quarter and scored three straight to start the second quarter to make it 5-2, mixed in with a game misconduct assessed to New England's Mike McNamara. Toronto led 6-4 at the half.

The Black Wolves made it 6-5 on a power play goal by Brett Bucktooth from up top, assisted by Pat Saunders and Billings.

The Wolves were still within striking distance at 8-6 in the fourth quarter when they were whistled for a holding penalty, drawing the ire of the fans, as well as Harrison. Toronto's Colin Doyle capitalized on the power play to make it 9-6.

Billings finished with a goal and four assists for New England and Kyle Buchanan had two goals.

“We want to get wins, home or away. We need to continue to grow and get better,” Wolves forward Kevin Buchanan said. “The team we played tonight, their core guys have been together for six, seven, eight, nine seasons. They do the little things. We're so close, so close, so close, and then we stumble.”

Harrison is the former Michigan State head coach (1984-85) and was an assistant coach for the U.S. National Indoor Lacrosse team that won the bronze medal in the 2011 World Indoor Lacrosse Championship in Prague.

As a player, he won the Mann Cup in 1987 and 1988 with the Brooklin Redmen and earned the award as the top defensive player in Major Series Lacrosse on three occasions. He was a member of Canadian National teams that won the bronze medal in 1982 and silver in 1986 at the World Lacrosse Championship under Hall of Fame coach Bob Allen.

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday