U22 A’s capture provincial crown in OT
The St. Catharines Athletics U22 boys captured the gold medal in dramatic fashion at the Ontario Lacrosse Festival in Whitby.
The A’s edged Toronto Beaches 6-4 in overtime after Beaches tied the game at 4-4 in the final seconds with their goaltender on the bench for the extra attacker.
The A’s then regrouped and netted the lone two goals of the extra 10 minutes.
“It got my heart racing for sure,” A’s head coach Adam Arkell said. “It was an incredible game from both sides.”
Arkell admitted going into OT with a provincial gold medal on the line was nerve wracking.
“It’s terrifying,” he said. “At that point it’s out of your hands. It’s everything you’ve worked on all season. It’s everything that you’ve asked for and they’ve given you up to this point and you just have to hope that it’s so driven into their heads and hearts they want it and go our there and do what it takes.
“Not the preferred scenario but at the end of the day it only made it sweeter that they saw that adversity and rose up to it rather than shy away from it.”
The A’s defeated Beaches handily in a tournament earlier in the year but the final was a different story.
“We’ve always had good battles with them,” Arkell said. “We wiped the floor with them (at the tournament) but they came out this time with their hearts and heads in it and really gave us a battle.”
The A’s tied Six Nations 3-3 and defeated Guelph and Gloucester in pool play before knocking off Milton 5-3 in a tough semifinal matchup.
St. Catharines finished the season with an incredible 23-0-2 record, 174 goals scored and just 58 goals against. It was the A’s 20th U22 A title and first since 2001, the longest drought in the history of the organization.
“It was an incredible year,” Arkell said. “The record really stands for itself. The boys were absolutely phenomenal. Every step of the way they had each other’s backs. It’s not say we didn’t have tough opponents along the way — the record tells a story that might seem otherwise — but we had some tough matchups but the boys were super resilient and always found a way to get it done.”
Arkell said working under the Athletics umbrella made the job much more streamlined for the coaching staff.
“It was a lot of co-operation and communication with the U17 coaches and the junior B and junior A coaches,” he said. “That’s the kind of a culture we’ve been trying to foster over the last few years with the St. Catharines Athletics having the junior B team now. It’s a lot easier being under one roof communicating and sharing players where we need to in order to get the job done. We could send guys and they could plug and play into their system and that’s what we’re going for.”
The A’s, who were led by goalie Tyler Scott (2.35 GAA, two shutouts) and Tyler Stevens (50 goals, 71 points) and Colin Walters (51 points), lose only Brayden Hall to age next season.
Team roster: Mike Welsh, Jared Cook, Tyler Stevens (A), Brayden Hall, Christian Blaylock (C), Simon Marshall, Dylan Price, Nolan Price, Ty Kostyniuk, Taydan Williams, Aiden Hill, Sam Howe, Kaleb Taylor, Liam Vanderwier, Patrick Longboat, Aaron Wilson, Colin Walters (A), Tyler Scott (G), Ryan Janese (AP), Liam Larocque (AP).
Coaching staff: Head coach: Adam Arkell. Assistant coach, trainer: Duncan Belliveau, Nick Gicante; Manager: Andrea Scott; Social media manager: Josh Shute.
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