A’s have home-floor advantage in semifinal
Best-of-7 playoff against Orangeville opens Sunday night
One win, and two points.
That’s all that separated the St. Catharines Jr. A Athletics and Orangeville Northmen during the regular season.
Now the two teams will play for post-season supremacy in the second round of the Ontario Junior A Lacrosse League playoffs beginning Sunday night at Jack Gatecliff Arena in St. Catharines in Game 1of a best-of-seven series.
The third-seeded Athletics finished the regular season with a 13-7 record, while the fourthranked Northmen were 12-8.
“For one, they’re going to be well-coached with Bruce Codd,” said A’s head coach Steve Toll.
“My big thing with Orangeville is they’re the same in every age group — boys and girls — if you don’t come to work extremely hard, and outwork them, you’re not going to beat them. They never quit.”
Defence, and in particular goaltending, could be the deciding factor in this series. Orangeville allowed a league-low 142 goals during the regular season led by most valuable player netminder Rylan Hartley, while the Athletics and second team allstar Nick Damude allowed just 144 goals.
Damude leads all goaltenders
in the playoffs with a sparkling 4.67 goalsagainst-average and .896 save-percentage.
“Both (netminders) are playing top-notch right now,” Toll said. “They were voted onetwo in the league in the regular season, and they’re both playing like that right now.”
“Hopefully, ours will be better this series,” the St. Catharines coach added with a chuckle.
Offensively, the A’s definitely have the advantage. St. Catharines had four players with 50 or more points led by Alex Simmons, 37 goals and 82 points; while the Northmen featured just one in Kyle Waters, 42 goals and 73 points.
Simmons has 15 points in the playoffs; Waters, 14.
The Athletics swept the regular season series with two victories: 8-6 in St. Catharines and a 12-9 overtime win in Orangeville.
As is the case with most sports, special teams could be crucial in the post-season and the Northmen had a perfect penalty kill in their first-round series against the Whitby Warriors. Orangeville did not allow Whitby to score on 15 power-play opportunities.
“You’re best penalty killer is your goalie, so it goes back to goaltending,” explained Toll. “Usually when you find the best penaltykilling team, you find the best goaltender right beside it.
“We’ll definitely have to muster something up and get something going on the power play.”
Both teams are coming off opening round playoff sweeps. The A’s eliminated Six Nations, while the Northmen ousted Whitby.
“We have to play 5-on-5, and stay disciplined,” Toll said. “We can’t give up any transition goals, and stick to our game plan.
“We’re not going to change much. They know us, and we know them.”
A’s Acorns: Both teams will have a full week off before starting this series ... The only question mark for Toll is forward Jake McNabb who enters Sunday as a game-time
decision with an upper body injury ... Athletics captain Latrell Harris should be back on Canadian soil from the World Field Lacrosse Championships in Israel on Monday and be in the lineup for Game 2 Tuesday night in Orangeville ... Chris Weier, who played junior B with the Niagara Thunderhawks this season and is a Niagara-on-the-Lake native, is on the Orangeville roster ... St. Catharines native James Ferguson is the manager for the Northmen.