Athletics capture Ontario championship
With 2.5 seconds remaining on the clock, Jeff Chcoski figured it was safe to call for the champagne.
The general manager of the St. Catharines WKML Athletics had the bubbly on ice in the back of his truck, but didn’t dare tempt fate and bring it into the dressing room for fear of upsetting the lacrosse gods.
But as time wound down, Chcoski knew the time was right as the A’s held on to edge the Brampton Excelsiors 14-13 Sunday night at the Toronto Rock Centre in Oakville to capture the Iroquois Cup, emblematic of the Ontario junior A lacrosse championship.
“You have to be prepared either way,” Chcoski said, as he hovered over a huge cooler of champagne in the A’s dressing room while the team celebrated on the floor. “I’m so proud we were able to put this squad together in such a short time.
“It’s been a while since St. Catharines has won an Ontario championship.”
The last A’s club to win an Ontario title was the 2003 squad which then went on to win the Minto Cup.
With no Minto Cup this season due to the COVID pandemic, the Ontario title felt like a national championship for the A’s.
“It’s been six years of waiting for this,” A’s captain Tom Whitty said amongst the post-game celebrations. “This group has been together since we were kids.
“This is everything we’ve dreamed of since we were six years old.”
The A’s split their first four games over the three-week tournament, then finished in a blaze of glory with six straight victories.
“In our heads, we had 10 games to win,” Whitty said. “The guys here are warriors and we’re all here to win together.”
A’s sniper Carter Zavitz was thrilled as well.
“This feels amazing. This is something we’ve been working towards for years now,” he said.
A’s coach Steve Toll could barely speak, his throat raw after 10 games behind the bench over the last three weekends.
“We never stopped going, never stopped working,” Toll said. “We kept battling right to the end.
“Our defence got us here, but our offence won us the game.”
Toll was particularly happy for the two years of graduating players who went out on top after it appeared their junior careers might have been over due to the pandemic.
“For the 99s and the 2000s and with Zavitz being my cousin and missing out on that, to get this for them is the best feeling in the world,” Toll added.
A’s president Paul Coates gave props up and down the organization.
“Guys did an unbelievable job, obviously from the guys on the floor, to our bench staff and guys like Bob McLaren and Lee Randall, just off the charts,” Coates said. “What Jeff Chcoski, Steve Toll and all the coaches did, giving selflessly of their time, it was just an unbelievable effort from top to bottom.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled. It puts Double Blue back on the map.”
The A’s edged Mimico 7-6 Saturday to advance to the final.
Carter Zavitz had two goals while Alex Simmons, Kealan Pilon, Ty Steenhuis, Brayden Mayea and Felix Cote added singles.
Final scoring stats from Sunday’s game will be included and the story updated as soon as they become available.
A’s acorns: The St. Catharines A’s finished 2-3 in the Young Guns portion of the tournament. The A’s won their first two games Friday before dropping three straight. Keaton Zavitz (10-5-15), Ethan Fisher (1-7-8), Tyler Stevens (0-6-6), Carter Accursi (3-2-5) and Colton Armitage (2-3-5) paced the offence.
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