Athletics come up short
There continues to be little separating the St. Catharines Athletics and Burlington Chiefs.
Just 24 hours after a marathon triple overtime battle which finally ended when Burlington prevailed, the Chiefs once again edged the A’s in dramatic fashion Monday.
Sam English scored a short-handed goal at the 18:32 mark of the third period to give Burlington a 6-5 victory and a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven Ontario Lacrosse Association junior A semifinal playoff series.
Remarkably, it was the fourth short-handed goal of the game for the Chiefs.
“The best way I can put this is, I’m not mad, I’m not upset, games like this happen,” A’s general manager Jeff Chcoski said. “I am disappointed with the four short-handed goals against and then they had two power-play goals. They didn’t score five-on-five.”
The game was tied 3-3 after one period. Burlington scored twice in the second period to take a 5-3 lead after 40 minutes before the A’s tied things up at 5-5 with a pair of goals than a minute apart halfway through the period.
“No one is pointing fingers here,” Chcoski said. “It’s disappointment in the attention to detail. We need to clean this thing up a little bit.”
Game 4 is Wednesday at Jack Gatecliff Arena at 8 p.m. Game 5 is Friday in Burlington.
“It’s 2-1 coming back to our barn and now we have to take care of business and see where we’re standing after Wednesday night,” Chcoski said. “We have to take care of our floor.”
The A’s were without snipers Alex Simmons and Kealan Pilon as well as Owen Friesen and Gavin McGregor.
Liam Ham suited up for the A’s and collected a goal and two assists, although Chcoski was unsure if Ham would be available for Game 4.
Mason Kamminga and Jake McNabb scored two each for the A’s while Brayden Mayea added four assists.
Matt Anderson and Jason Knox collected two goals each for the winners while Ryan Lanchbury and English added singles.
Burlington held a 44-38 edge in shots. The A’s went 0-for-6 on the power play.
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