A’s sit out playoffs
Athletics finish disappointing season on a high note with road victory over Burlington
Despite closing their regular season with an impressive 13-4 victory over the Burlington Chiefs Wednesday night, there’s no denying that the St. Catharines Athletics 2017 campaign was a disappointing, underachieving one for Sean Allen and his staff.
St. Catharines finished the 2016 junior B lacrosse season with a 6-13-1 record, and many pundits thought the A’s could crack the top four, or at least finish in the top six, in the 11-team league.
Instead the Athletics went 3-7 over their final 10 games, including a five-game losing streak, and finished ninth this year with an 8-12 record.
“The difference tonight was a different mindset from whistle to whistle,” said Allen, the team’s general manager and head coach.
“We absolutely should be in this (playoff ) mix. Bad bounces, missed assignments along the way, very, very, few finite details and we’re on the outside looking in.”
So what went wrong this season?
Allen offered this: “I think we underestimated the value of consistency for 60 minutes in certain games.”
“We just let certain games get away from us. It wasn’t one massive error, but when you start to add up all the little ones up, we’re in the position that we’re in.” The positives. Carter Zavitz, who is off to Princeton University this fall on a field lacrosse scholarship, was the team’s leading scorer posting 21 goals and 37 assists – both team highs – and surpassing his 53-point total from last season.
Goaltender Nick Damude went from a 9.96 goals against average and 0.702 save percentage in 2016 to a 7.36 GAA and 0.797 save percentage this season.
And, lastly, the A’s only graduate two players: Cree Blakely and Bryan Hancock.
“That’s why we wanted to send a message tonight (Wednesday),” Allen said. “The vast majority of this team comes back, and that’s the message we wanted to send to everyone else.
“There was a lot of emotion tonight from those guys (Blakely and Hancock) and for those guys.”
Allen knows the 2018 season is just around the corner and with that comes looking ahead.
“Believe, prepare, and come ready to play from Game 1 to Game 20,” Allen said.
“Preparation is key. I thought we prepared really well for this game tonight thinking it was going to mean something, and I think underneath it all it really did mean something and that might not mean anything until next year.”
A’s acorns: Kealon Pilon, Tanner Vail, Liam Ham, Zack Luis, Mike Davies, Jacob McMillan, Jacob Johnson and Connor Aquanno were scratched for the Athletics … McNabb put up 19 of his 40 points in just five games with St. Catharines after a trade from Six Nations … Seven of the A’s 13 goals Wednesday were scored on special teams: five on the power play; two, shorthanded … Niagara Thunderhawk junior B players Hunter Lemieux and Bryce Mayea were held pointless for Burlington.