A’s on the ropes
Down but not out.
Following a 9-6 loss to the visiting Orangeville Northmen Wednesday night at Canada Games Park, the St. Catharines WMKL Athletics trail their best-of-five Ontario Junior A Lacrosse League semifinal playoff series 2-0 and face elimination Saturday in Orangeville.
No one on the team is conceding defeat.
“OK teams or good teams would go in there and maybe make it a close one but great teams will go in there and pull it out and we are a great team here,” A’s captain Keaton Zavitz said. “Being down 2-0 is nothing for us and we are ready to go in there and bring it back home on Monday.”
He is confident his team can do just that.
“All of these brothers in this room are a very tight group. Looking around the room we know what our standard is. We have the best defence in Canada and two of the best goalies in Canada. When our O (offence) clicks, we click and we are one of the better teams in Canada. We are ready to go show that on Saturday.”
Saturday’s game is crucial on a whole bunch of different levels.
“It is very important to our team and our mental mindset. I don’t want to bring up next year but even for next year we need to show that this is a team that is great this year and will be great next year,” Zavitz said. “We are going to go in there and win.”
Wednesday’s game was a far cry from Sunday’s opener in Orangeville which saw the A’s get thumped 16-4.
“It was a better performance but not something was good or up to our standards. We definitely could have had a lot more goals and kept them to fewer goals,” Zavitz said. “But obviously when we played them in Orangeville for Game 1 that wasn’t our team and we knew that so we had to come out a little better.”
Athletics head coach Steve Toll was a lot happier with his team’s performance Wednesday night.
“They are a very good team. When you lose to a good team it’s obviously not what you want but we worked hard for about 50 minutes of the game. You can’t make little mistakes against teams like that because they capitalize every time. When you make a mistake or miss an assignment, it is in the back of the net. But I am proud of the guys. We battled with the best team in Canada.”
The A’s never trailed by more than two goals until there was 12:51 left in the game. A key moment in the game was St. Catharines surrendering a goal with 3.7 seconds left in the second period to fall behind 7-5.
“It was a killer. We have done that a million times and for some reason there was a miscommunication and it has never happened like that before where a guy was left alone,” Toll said. “Like I said, little things add up to big things and that was the TSN (How about BPSN?) turning point, in my opinion.”
Toll felt the biggest difference in his team’s performance Wednesday was effort.
“When you are playing a team from Orangeville from the time you are five years old until the time you are 25 years old, if you are not ready to work hard you are going to get pounded. We worked hard today and we battled.”
The message for Saturday is simple.
“You have to move on and we can’t worry about that game. We were a lot better but we still weren’t our best. We have to battle back and see what happens. It is called a series for a reason,” Toll said.
STATS PACK
Northmen 9 A’s 6
WMKL Player of the Game: Orangeville’s Joey Spallina with four goals and two assists.
For the St. Catharines Athletics: Zack Toll (2), Tye Steenhuis, Trent Mooradian, Keaton Zavitz and Colton Armitage.
For the Orangeville Northmen: Spallina (4), Liam Matthews (2), Trey Deere (2) and Owen Rahn.
Up next: Game 3 Saturday in Orangeville at 7 p.m. If necessary, Game 4 is Monday in St. Catharines at 8 p.m.
