Blaze burn A’s in opener
The one constant for the St. Catharines WMKL Athletics this season has been their inability to get off to a quick start.
The A’s often manage to fight back way back after their poor starts, but Friday night came up just short.
The Athletics dropped a tough 8-7 decision to the Burlington Blaze at Canada Games Park in the opener of their Ontario Junior Lacrosse League best-of-seven quarter-final playoff series.
“It’s weird, we’re down 6-1 again,” A’s head coach Steve Toll said. “I don’t know what it is with our starts, we just can’t find the rhythm.”
Burlington led 2-1 after one period before opening up a 6-1 lead early in the second.
“Our offence has to get going early. We’re not productive early and it’s hurting us,” Toll said.
The A’s have tried to change things up before the game to shake off their early doldrums, but to no avail.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Toll said. “Keats (captain Keaton Zavitz) has changed our warmup, he’s changed everything up. He’s done everything a captain should do to change stuff up. We just can’t start games for some reason. Maybe we have to get to the rink later, or something. I’m not sure what the game plan is, we just have to start better for sure.”
The A’s managed to claw their way back into the game, trailing 6-4 after two before Tye Steenhuis and Zavitz scored early in the third to even things up at 6-6. The teams then traded goals before Chuck Rawson beat Ty Wilson with 1:26 to play for the winner.
“Like (assistant coach) Robbie Taylor said, when it was a tie game I thought we were going to win it,” Toll said.
“It was just a bad goal at a bad time. Ty played very well but I’ve been tough on the players all year and it’s a save you have to make in a big game like that. If I was a good shot, I’d say it was a good goal. To me, it wasn’t a good goal.”
The A’s now go on the road for two games Sunday and Monday and must win at least one to see their home floor again this season. Game 4, if necessary, is Wednesday in St. Catharines.
“We have to do what we have to do and battle back,” Toll said. “I like the way the boys competed, the way we battled back and worked hard, we just have to get a few more goals and get some production from some other players too.
“The good thing is we just played there and we won. The boys know we can compete with this team. Now it’s up to them. It’s 20 boys, 16-20 years old, against 20 other boys, 16-20 years old, and it’s who wants it more and who works harder. We just have to move on and come back Sunday with a little bit of a different game plan and make a couple of little adjustments.”
STATS PACK
Blaze 8 A’s 7
WMKL Player of the Game: Burlington goaltender Calum Leaver-Preyra with 58 saves.
St. Catharines Athletics: Zackary Toll 2; Tye Steenhuis 2; Colton Armitage, Keaton Zavitz.
Burlington Blaze: Chuck Rawson 2; Sawyer English 2; Zander Derkatz 2; Lucas Fraser, Ted Rawson.
Up next: Game 2 Sunday at Burlington, 7 p.m. Game 2 Monday at Burlington, 8 p.m.
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