Trent men’s lacrosse team win away from final
Excalibur to face winner of Friday quarter-final in Saturday semi-final
The Trent Excalibur men’s lacrosse team is one win away from a Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association final.
The Excalibur ran up a big first half lead and then held off the Ottawa Gee Gees second-half rally to win their Baggataway Cup play-in game 14-11 at Justin Chiu Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The victory, along with their first place finish in the East Division, gives Trent a bye to next Saturday’s Baggataway Cup semifinal at 1 p.m. at the University of Toronto. They’ll face the winner of one of Friday’s two quarter-final games.
Trent jumped out to a 5-0 lead and were up 13-7 at half-time. Ottawa scored four consecutive goals to close within 13-11 with 6:19 remaining. Cole McWilliams’ third goal of the game with 4:30 left secured the win.
“We came out firing,” said Excalibur long pole and Peterborough native Josh Martin. “We arguably got a little comfortable at points. At the end of the day, we still stuck to our fundamentals and fought through and battled adversity to end up coming out on top.”
Excalibur head coach Mark Farthing expected Ottawa to give them trouble.
“We came out hot. We were riding an emotional high after our McGill game last week,” said Farthing. “We had a great week of practice and came right in and took a 5-0 lead and were playing good ball. (Ottawa) works hard and makes plays and they scored some goals. They had McGill in overtime this year so we knew it wasn’t going to be a walkover. It was the battle we were expecting. We’re happy to be taking the next step.”
Trent has reached the Baggataway Cup final once before losing to Western in 2015. Martin, in his fourth and final year, feels this year’s team is Trent’s best chance yet.
“My first year we made it to the final and that team kind of came out of nowhere,” said Martin. “We were kind of unexpected and just rolled with it. Last year, we lost in the quarters to Guelph and that was a really bad feeling going home because we thought we had he team to do it. This year we’ve been working hard knowing that nothing was going to be given and we’d have to work for everything and if we put our heads down we could do it.”
Farthing likes his roster and feels they’re battle-tested.
“This is our goal, to win the Baggataway Cup, from the first day we got together in August,” he said. “We’re right on track and right where we need to be. We’re excited.”
Travis Ferguson, who won some key draws down the stretch, Cam Garlin, Nick Finlay and Nick Chaykowsky scored two goals each for Trent with singles to Nic Andreoli, Jeff Fernandes and Nick Karam. Goalie Austin Cairns made some key stops late in the game.
Peterborough Timberman player Fred Hartley scored four goals for Ottawa while Spencer Corkery, Brady Martin and Keith Lee scored two goals each and Liam McCrory one.