Let the playoffs begin.

The National Lacrosse League wrapped up its 81-game regular season Saturday with Georgia finishing first overall to earn a first-round playoff bye along with runner-up Saskatchewan, with New England at Toronto and Colorado at Vancouver finalized as the semi-final matchups, and with Rochester joining Buffalo and Calgary hanging up the gear til next year.

Georgia’s Lyle Thompson won the scoring title with 116 points.

“It all just came with hard work and team chemistry,” said the second-year pro from the Onondaga Nation via the University of Albany. “Last year, I started off slow coming into the league, and I progressed as the season went on. I don’t feel like I did well last year. I wanted to come back and be better and take a bigger role on the team. I worked on myself, just working to see what I had to do to be a better player. A lot of that comes with confidence.”

Four others also earned more than 100: Saskatchewan’s Mark Matthews, 113; Vancouver’s Corey Small, 111; Calgary’s Curtis Dickson, 108; and New England’s Shawn Evans, 104. One of them is bound to win the league MVP award.

Dickson scored 54 goals to lead the league for the second year in a row. He was one shy of tying Gary Gait’s record of 115 for most in two consecutive seasons.

Georgia set a record for most goals in a season with 266 _ 35 more than second-best Saskatchewan _ to top the previous high of 258 by the Rochester Knighthawks in 2002 when teams played two fewer games than the current 18.

One-game semifinals are this Saturday. The survivors will be at home for Game 1 of the division finals. Georgia, 13-5, and Saskatchewan, 12-6, will be at home for Game 2 on May 20. If there is a split, an immediate 10-minute mini-game decides a finalist for the best-of-three Champion’s Cup series.

HOW IT HAPPENED

So, how did Toronto and Vancouver get home floor for their semis after entering the weekend in third place in their divisions?

The Rock needed a win and a New England loss to jump ahead of the Black Wolves. When the Black Wolves lost 17-16 at home to Vancouver on Corey Small’s overtime goal, it was early in the fourth quarter of the Toronto-Buffalo game. The Rock trailed 15-12. Assistant coach Blaine Manning whispered to head coach Matt Sawyer that the Black Wolves had lost. Sawyer told the other assistant, Bruce Codd. The coaches did not tell the players.

“You don’t want to put that in their heads at that point,” Sawyer said after his players scored the last seven goals to win 19-15. “We’re happy to get the win and host a playoff game.”

The Rock finished 9-9 and got second place when New England slipped to 8-10.

Vancouver knew after Colorado lost 10-9 at home to Saskatchewan on Friday that it could finish second in the West by winning at New England. It took extra time, but the Stealth did it — barely. They let a 15-10 slip away and trailed 16-15 with little more than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Small tied it with 18 seconds left and he won it for the Stealth in the seventh minute of overtime, tying his club’s single-season points record.

“It was a great game and it may have been the greatest game I have ever been a part of in my entire life,” said emotionally drained head coach Jamie Batley.

The Stealth finished 9-9. Colorado has the same record but the Stealth won the season series so got the nod for second place.

IN THE NETS

Tye Belanger started his season as a backup in Vancouver but excelled as the season progressed. He takes a league-best 79.6 save percentage into the playoffs. Colorado’s Dillon Ward, 79.3, and Georgia’s Mike Poulin, 78.1, were key contributors in their teams’ success.

Matt Vinc, 77.6, had a good season despite Rochester’s failure to make the playoffs. Nick Rose’s percentage slipped to 77.4 late in Toronto’s season. Calgary’s Frankie Scigliano was close behind at 77.3 and he was followed by New England’s Evan Kirk, 77.1, Buffalo’s Anthony Cosmo, 76.8, and Saskatchewan’s Aaron Bold, 76.5.

SCHREIBER SETS RECORD

Tom Schreiber of East Meadow, N.Y., via Princeton, finished with 61 assists to break the NLL rookie record of 59 Randy Staats set last year. Schreiber should be a unanimous pick for the award that goes to the rookie of the year. The 2016 MVP of Major League Lacrosse will join that league’s Ohio Machine immediately after the Rock season.

Staats retains the rookie points record of 95. Schreiber got 94. The record for most goals by a rookie is unlikely to ever be broken: Paul Gait scored 47 goals in 1991 when there were only 10 games in the regular season. Schreiber scored 33 this year.

WHOSE HOUSE?

Mark Steenhuis picked up two assists in Buffalo’s 19-15 loss to Toronto to increase his career points total to an even 1,000 and become the ninth player in the 1,000 Point Club.

Teammate Ryan Benesch’s eight-point game increased his career total to 836, moving him past Blaine Manning and into 12th all-time.

ONE OF A KIND

Shawn Evans is the first player with five straight 100-point seasons.

HONORING WILLIAMS

Shawn Williams was inducted into the Rochester Knighthawks Hall of Fame in a pre-game ceremony Friday.

Williams spent 10 (2002-2011) of his 17 NLL seasons with the Knighthawks. His NLL stats with rank: 444 goals, eighth; 708 assists, sixth; and 1,152 points, seventh. His Iron Man streak of 230 consecutive games is second-longest in league history.

“We had a lot of great teams over the years and we thought every year we could make a run for it,” Williams said. “Obviously, it happening in ’07 was very special.”

“Willy was a superstar, a great player and a great team guy,” said Jody Gage, vice president of player personnel. “He was an important part of our success. He brought it every night.”

THE UPPER HAND

Saskatchewan’s 10-9 road win Friday made it nine wins in the last 11 regular season games against Colorado, making the Rush an overwhelming favorite should the two meet in the playoffs.

THREE SUSPENDED

Colorado forward Stephen Keogh and Vancouver players Matt Beers and Cliff Smith sat out their teams’ games during the weekend in serving one-game suspensions for penalties they were assessed in the game they played the previous weekend.

UH, OH

Buffalo, 6-12, Rochester, 7-11, and Calgary, 8-10, missed the playoffs and, as history suggests, any talk out of those cities about winning the championship in 2018 will be unrealistic because no team in the last 20 years has missed the playoffs then won the championship the following season.

Five teams did manage to make it to the championship game or series after missing the playoffs the previous year: Baltimore 1997-98; Albany 2001-2002; Portland 2007-2008; Toronto 2009-2010; and Washington 2012-2013.

This is the first time that Buffalo and Rochester have missed the playoffs in the same year.

STREAK OVER

The Calgary Roughnecks missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years, but at least they ended an 11-game losing streak against Saskatchewan when they finished their schedule with a 14-7 win over the visiting Rush on Saturday. A regular season-record crowd of 18,845 took it in.

“I love this place, I always will,” Roughnecks forward Dane Dobbie said. “The crowd here is awesome and [Saturday] was crazy.”

At game’s end, Curtis Dickson apologized to them for the team’s losing season and promised it would improve on its 8-10 showing.

2017 DRAFT

As it now stands, Buffalo, has the first pick, Rochester the second and Calgary the third in next September’s entry draft.

REBUILDING CONTINUES

Rochester, the 2012, 2013 and 2014 champions, missed the playoffs for a second year in a row. The Knighthawks closed it out with a 9-8 win at Georgia. With the score 8-8 in the dying seconds, the Swarm pulled their goalie and sent out an extra runner in an attempt to win with the last shot. But Rochester defenseman Graeme Hossack stripped the ball away from Lyle Thompson, tossed it to the length of the floor, and watched it bounce into the empty net a split second before time expired.

“To end it this way is a credit to the guys,” head coach Mike Hasen said.

The Knighthawks had lost 13-10 at home against Georgia on Friday and the Swarm sat out Randy Staats, Johnny Powless and Miles Thompson on Saturday while using backup Brodie MacDonald in the nets.

Rochester used at one time or another 11 rookies this season, and they only had star forward Cody Jamieson for just one game before he opted for knee surgery. The team’s poor showing resulted in a damaging hit at the box office.

“This season has been a learning curve,” Hasen said. “We’ve had a lot of changes and we’ve got a lot of young guys but the future is bright in Rochester.”

Kyle Jackson is one of the reasons for optimism. The rookie out of the University of Michigan scored 26 goals and finished with 60 points.

Looking ahead to the entry draft next September, Rochester has the second, fourth and ninth picks. It needs to use them wisely and hope to get a healthy Jamieson back on the floor in 2018.

ONLY THE FOURTH TO DO IT

Rochester forward Dan Dawson is the fourth player with 800 career assists. John Tavares holds the record with 934, Josh Sanderson had 908, Colin Doyle had 857 and Dawson has 804.

ATTENDANCE RECAP

Overall attendance is up marginally for the second year in a row. Numbers are up in five cities and down in four.  The breakdown:

Buffalo -  15,148 (down from 15,833)
Saskatchewan - 14,921 (up from 11,737)
Colorado - 14,458 (up from 13,832)
Calgary - 11,622 (up from 11,471)
Toronto - 9,623 (up from 9,159)
Rochester - 6,755 (down from 8,164)
New England - 5,402 (up from 3,751)
Georgia - 3,950 (down from 4,667)
Vancouver - 3,206 (down from 3,758)

The average NLL crowd when all teams and all games are combined:

2012: 9,469
2013: 9,662
2014: 9,430
2015: 8,970
2016: 9,152
2017: 9,454

OFFENSE

Georgia’s 14.78 goals-per-game pace was the league’s best. Saskatchewan (12.83), Buffalo (12.83), New England (12.22), Toronto (12.17), Vancouver (12.11), Calgary (11.78), Colorado (11.22) and Rochester (9.72) followed.

DEFENSE

Colorado wound up allowing a league-low 199 goals. Toronto (11.11), Rochester (11.61), Saskatchewan (11.78), Georgia (11.83), Calgary (12.22), Vancouver (12.28), New England (13.56) and Buffalo (13.94) followed.

TIME TRAVEL

May 6, 2000: Kaleb Toth, with a pinpoint overhand shot, put a ball in a top corner of the net behind Rochester goalie Pat O’Toole with one second remaining to give the Rock a 14-13 victory in the championship game in front of 14,211 spectators taking in the last sports event in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens. Rock forward Dan Stroup, who scored three of his five goals in the fourth quarter, was named MVP. The play designed to set up the last shot was to have Colin Doyle pass the ball to Stroup but, when Stroup was double-teamed, Doyle passed to Toth.

“From the game tapes we watched and from our scouting reports, we knew O’Toole might lean and give that corner,” Toth replied when asked how he decided where to aim his shot. “All game I was pulling my shots and hitting him in the chest. This time, I didn’t put as much pull on my shot and it went in.”