A’s keep Minto Cup hopes alive

Two unanswered goals gave the visiting St. Catharines Athletics a 7-6 victory over the Burlington Chiefs Friday night and kept alive their hopes for their first Canadian junior A lacrosse championship in 16 years.

Game 2 in the best-of-seven semifinal between No. 2 seed Burlington and the third-seeded Athletics was Sunday night at Jack Gatecliff Arena in St. Catharines with the Chiefs leading the series three games to two.

A seventh game, if needed, goes Monday at Central Arena in Burlington.

The winner of the secondround series will play the Orangeville Northmen in a best-ofseven final for the Ontario Lacrosse Association junior A championship and the right to represent the province at nationals.

On Friday night, Jake McNabb, with three goals, including the game-winner with one minute remaining in regulation; Brayden Mayea, two; Latrell Harris and Tyler Brown scored for the A’s who slammed the brakes on a threegame losing skid.

Nick Damude earned the victory between the pipes for St. Catharines, which was outshot 46-44.

The A’s went 2-for-5 on the power play; the Chiefs, 1-for-4.

Two points separated Burlington, 16-4; and St. Catharines, 15-5; during the regular season, with the Chiefs taking a 9-6 decision in overtime May 25 at The Jack in the lone meeting the two teams in league play.

The Athletics are hoping to advance past the second round of the playoffs for the first time since capturing their sixth Minto Cup Canadian championship in 2003.

Burlington, which joined the league in 1976, has yet to reach a final. NOTES: Assistant coach Ian Rubel was filling in for St. Catharines bench boss Steve Toll, who was serving the second game of a three-game ban. … Alex Simmons has been out of the A’s lineup since Game 3 of the quarterfinal vs. the Six Nations Arrows with an upper-body injury. … No. 1 seed Orangeville beat fourth-seeded Brampton Excelsiors four games to one in the other semifinal. … In 2018, Brampton won the Ontario championship before falling to the Coquitlam, B.C., Adanacs three games to one in the national final.