Mohegan — The fourth quarter Saturday night embodied the entire season for the New England Black Wolves. They were down. They were up. They were down again.

After trailing by five goals with 9 minutes, 55 seconds to play, the Wolves then led by a goal with 18 seconds remaining, a potential home playoff game just 18 ticks away.

So close, but yet so far.

The Vancouver Stealth defeated the Black Wolves 17-16 in overtime before 6,326 fans at Mohegan Sun Arena, getting the tying and game-winning goals from Corey Small. Combined with the Toronto Rock's 19-15 victory over the Buffalo Bandits, that moves the playoff opener between the National Lacrosse League East Division opponents — the Rock and the Black Wolves — to Toronto at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 6.

The good news is the Black Wolves are still in the playoffs, although they enter the one-game matchup with the Rock on a two-game losing streak.

“The game's over with. I'm done with it,” New England's Shawn Evans said of the loss to the Stealth. “I'm ready for the playoffs. All these things that happened (during the season), you move forward. I hope the other guys wipe this game away.”

The winner between New England and Toronto will then face top-seeded Georgia in the East Division finals.

The Black Wolves are making their second straight playoff appearance, falling to Buffalo last season in the division championship series.

But this season, in which the Black Wolves finished 8-10 overall — one game behind second place Toronto (9-9) — was much more of a struggle, right from the first three games of the season in which New England started out in an 0-3 hole.

“A bit of the same script,” New England coach Glenn Clark said of the failure to grasp the opportunity the Wolves had before them Saturday. “You've got mixed emotions. You're happy you battled back. (But) when you make mistakes, you pay. We continue making some big ones that end up in the back of our net.

“It's desperation time. Our character's going to be tested.”

The Black Wolves, coming off a win over defending NLL champion Saskatchewan on April 15 in Saskatchewan, had an opportunity to clinch a playoff berth with a win last week against Rochester only to lose 15-13 in a performance Clark called “horrible.”

The Wolves got their playoff berth, though, by virtue of Georgia's victory Friday over Rochester, eliminating the Knighthawks from playoff contention.

Still, the Wolves' home arena was in play with a possible victory in Saturday night's game.

Kevin Crowley had five goals and two assists for New England, Kevin Buchanan four goals and two assists and Shawn Evans a goal and eight assists, assisting seven of the Wolves' first eight goals as they took an 8-7 lead with 5:47 to play in the second quarter.

New England, which finished with a franchise record 82 shots directed at Vancouver goalie Tye Belanger (66 saves), led 9-8 at halftime.

With the Wolves ahead 10-9 in the third quarter, however, disaster seemingly struck as Vancouver scored six straight goals to lead 15-10.

But, also as it's done all season, New England battled back, reeling off six straight of its own. Buchanan scored and Evans followed on a power play with 7:04 to go. Next, it was Buchanan's turn again, reacting with an overhand fist pump and then one underhand.

Vancouver had the ensuing goal disallowed and the Wolves continued their march. Kyle Buchanan scored assisted from Evans to pull within 15-14 and Chad Culp tied it assisted by Reilly O'Connor. The Black Wolves knotted the score just 5:35 after going down five goals.

Crowley scored what appeared would be the game-winner from the left wing with 3:17 remaining, but the final two goals would belong to Vancouver's Small.

The Black Wolves finished with 50 loose balls to 35 for the Stealth, but the hustle didn't translate into a victory.

“You take what you can learn from this and move on,” Crowley said. “We're not going to get anywhere being negative. … There's playing hard and playing smart. I don't think we were very smart at some points in the game. You've got to play hard and smart.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com