Jr. A Lakers hang on for season’s first win in thriller

Owen Hiltz gets hat trick with late winning goal

A young lacrosse team can take positives even from losses. But after doing that for eight straight games to open the season, the Merit Precision Jr A Lakers are taking a lot more from their thrilling 12-11 win over the powerhouse Brampton Excelsiors on Monday night at the Memorial Centre.

Taite Cattoni scored on the power play then Owen Hiltz finished off a hat trick by snagging a Sean Westley shot that just missed and ripping it into the open net to turn the tide on Brampton (5-2) in the final two minutes of the game.

After Hiltz’s goal with 24 seconds to play, the Lakers (1-8) had to hold on for dear life but their defence held firm and the team streamed from the bench to mob goalie Drew Hutchison.

A pair of third-period transition goals from Mitch Ogilvie and Brad Lyons were also critical in a strange game that saw Peterborough take a raft of penalties and have head coach Ray Dance and defender brothers Matthew and Danny Bazarin all kicked out of the game for abusing the officials.

Brampton was second in the league in goals allowed heading into Monday’s game, giving up just over seven per game, but Peterborough chased Brampton starting goalie Noble Jacobs with four goals in 14 minutes then scored on their first shot on Tyler Smith as they took a 5-4 lead after the first period.

The Lakers trailed 8-7 after 40 minutes largely because of some breakdowns in their young defence.

“Our communication was breaking down but Hutchy did a great job of talking everyone through it,” assistant coach Justin Kulla said of the goalie’s outstanding game.

“He’s our rock back there, he’s our leader, that’s why we put all of our trust in him.”

Ogilvie was also huge for the Lakers. He took primary responsibility for covering Brampton superstar Jeff Teat and Peterborough held Teat to five points when he was averaging almost eight per game coming in.

“Mitch is such a competitor. He’ll do anything you ask of him and he’ll give 150% every time he’s on the floor. That’s why he our captain. He leads by example,” Kulla said.

Even with the transition goals in the third, the Lakers trailed 11-10 when Kyle Vince scored for Brampton with 2:16 to play. Kulla had an ace up his sleeve, calling for a check on Smith’s goalie stick before the ensuing faceoff. It was too wide and the Cattoni’s tying goal came 18 seconds into the resulting power play.

Ogilvie said the win is just the start of what they Lakers want to accomplish.

“We’ve got a bunch of young guys and we’re getting the culture that we don’t lose. We want to win every game,” the captain said. “I think the younger guys are seeing that we don’t want to lose. We’ve got a couple of guys back and we’re starting to roll.”