A’s ready for tough battle with Chiefs
There isn’t much to choose from between the St. Catharines Athletics and the Burlington Chiefs.
The A’s and Chiefs meet beginning Friday in Burlington in Game 1 of their best-of-seven Ontario Lacrosse League junior A semifinal playoff series.
The Chiefs finished in second place with a 16-4 mark during the regular season, just one game ahead of the A’s, who placed third at 15-5. The teams met just once during the regular season with Burlington coming out on top 9-6 back in May.
With that as a backdrop, A’s general manager Jeff Chcoski feels the series may come down to the intangibles.
“I believe the difference in this series is going to be attention to detail,” he said. “I truly think it’s going to be the small things that win this series. It’s going to be staying disciplined, great goaltending, tough defence and scoring on your opportunities because you just won’t get as many as last series.”
Chcoski and the A’s coaching staff had a meeting just minutes after defeating Six Nations in the first round and all came to the same conclusion.
“To a man, we said this is probably going to go six or seven,” he said. “You’re going to have to win on the road, obviously. We think we’re prepared to do that.
“Six Nations was really a good test for us. They are a real good lacrosse team who I think will set us up well to go into this series.”
The Chiefs featured a strong, deep offence led by Scott DelZotto, Jason Knox, Sam English, Hunter Lemieux and Matt Anderson.
“They have eight guys up front that can all score,” Chcoski said. “Their defence is solid and well rounded. They have two guys that we’ll really keep our eyes on and then they traded for Drew Hutchison out of Peterborough.
“The difference this year as compared to when they lost in the first round last year is they have a good goalie. I think if Nicky (Damude) out-duels Hutchison, we win this series.”
The A’s split the first two games of their first series before hitting their stride offensively netting 24 goals in the final two games to eliminate the Arrows.
“Those last two games we saw the guys working hard off-ball,” Chcoski said. “You saw the guys really getting dirty trying to free guys up. You put Mason Kamminga up there and he’s a big body who frees up some space for these guys and I think you saw a few guys buying into their roles as pickers and scorers being scorers.”
The A’s will be without sniper Alex Simmons, who is nursing an upper body injury and still awaiting an MRI.
“At this point we have to go in saying Alex won’t be there,” Chcoski confirmed.
The A’s do hope to have forward Liam Ham available. The club signed Ham in June and the former Niagara IceDogs defenceman got into one game in the quarter-finals, scoring a goal in his season debut.
“He’s got a different level of commitment playing at a high level,” Chcoski said. “We’ve had open conversations.”
Chcoski said he explained Ham’s situation to the team — the Newmarket native is slated to play his over-age year with the Mississauga Steelheads this season — and is also dealing with a health situation with a member of his family.
“The team opened their arms to Liam,” Chcoski said. “Whenever he can help us, he brings a different game. He plays the game hard and goes to the net hard. He plays the game right and adds character to our team.”
Game 2 is Sunday, July 21 at Jack Gatecliff at 7 p.m. Game 3 is Monday, July 22 at Burlington at 8 p.m. with Game 4 Wednesday, July 24 at Jack Gatecliff Arena at 8 p.m.
A’s acorns: Damude. (816 save percentage, 5.29 goals against per game) was named the Robert Melville Memorial Award winner for the lowest goals-against average. Kealan Pilon was named the Gaylord Powless Memorial Award winner for the most sportsmanlike player. Latrell Harris was named to the first all-star team on defence while Damude and Pilon were named to the second team on offence.
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