Athletics dump Chiefs in semifinal opener
The St. Catharines Athletics drew first blood Friday night in their Ontario Lacrosse League junior A semifinal playoff series against the Burlington Chiefs.
Opening on the road against the second-place Chiefs, the third-place Athletics roared out to a 5-2 first-period lead and cruised to a 12-7 victory to grab a 1-0 advantage in the best-of-seven series.
“We’ve all been around long enough to know that you have to win one in their barn when you’re the three seed so we are happy to get that done tonight,” A’s general manager Jeff Chcoski said. “To get it done in the first game was pretty special for our group of guys in that room.”
Chcoski credited the Athletics’ first-round playoff opponent for helping St. Catharines come out strong against Burlington.
“It probably can be attributed a little bit to the tough series we had against Six Nations,” he said.”They really pushed us in every aspect of our game and I think we looked to carry that into this first game.”
St. Catharines did a lot of things well to grab the series lead.
“We play a solid, all-around, tough game,” Chcoski said. “It’s a rough series, it’s a physical series and we made sure we got to the net and we made sure we had each other’s back.”
There were no surprises in how the Chiefs came out against St. Catharines.
Chcoski felt the turning point in the game was how St. Catharines responded after Burlington netted its third short-handed goal of the game in the third period. The Athletics scored a power play goal and an empty net goal to finish off the game.
“We bounced back and that goal after their third short-handed goal was a big one and gave us the confidence to be able to finish them off,” he said.
Leading the offence for Niagara were: Jake McNabb, four goals; Kealon Pilon, a goal and five assists; Carter Zavitz, two goals and three helpers; Tyler Brown, a goal and two assists; Sam LeClair, two goals; Saul Van Der Zalm, a goal and an assist; Brandon Mayea, Liam McDonald, Rylee St. Onge and Mason Kamminga, two setups apiece; and, Latrell Harris with a single tally.
Sam English potted a hat trick for the Chiefs and single goals were contributed by Scott DelZotto, Ryan Lanchbury, Mike Harris and Matt Anderson.
Nick Damude picked up the win in goal for St. Catharines by making 34 saves. The Athletics outshot the Chiefs 43-41 in the game.
Game 2 is Sunday, July 21 at Jack Gatecliff at 7 p.m.
