A’s push reigning champs to brink

Another night, another proverbial monkey off the back of the St. Catharines Athletics.

Less than 24 hours after earning their first playoff victory since 2010, the A’s picked up their first road post-season win since 2009, hammering the Six Nations Arrows 9-2 Thursday night at Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Hagersville.

The Athletics now lead the best-of-five Ontario Junior A Lacrosse League opening-round playoff series 2-0, and can wrap things up Sunday night at home.

“We made a couple of little adjustments on the defence, and a couple of adjustments at the offence, couple of little tweaks, and the boys did it to perfection,” St. Catharines head coach Steve Toll said.

“We knew they (Arrows) were going to come out flying, and were going to rough us up and make it a penalty-filled affair, but we took the hacks and took the whacks and stayed disciplined and scored very timely goals.”

Nick Damude was huge in goal for the Athletics, frustrating the Six Nations shooters, making 51

stops on 53 shots.

“You don’t win in this league without a great goalie, but credit to the entire defence as they kept a lot of the shots to the outside, but he’s (Damude) playing really well right now,” said Toll.

And while Damude was turning the Arrows away at one end, Alex Simmons continues to prove he’s one of the best junior lacrosse players in the country. The Smithville native scored his 10 hat trick in 15 games this season and added an assist in the victory.

“I said between periods tonight, ‘Offensive guys, it’s just going to get worse every round (of the playoffs), and if you want to get all the glory of scoring goals you’ve got to pay the price to score goals,’and he did a great job again tonight ” Toll said.

Simmons now shares the junior A playoff scoring lead with seven goals and 11 points in just two games.

Toll hopes Sunday can be another milestone win for the historic St. Catharines franchise.

“Let’s hope we get a playoff series win now,” added Toll. “Stick to the game plan, stay disciplined, and let’s see what happens.”

A’s Acorns: Kealon Pilon returned to the Athletics lineup and scored once. Despite leaving the game for precautionary reasons, Carter Zavitz scored twice and added a helper for the A’s ... Simmons shares the playoff scoring lead with Orangeville’s Kyle Waters ... The last time St. Catharines had a 2-0 playoff series lead was 2008 against the Kitchener-Waterloo Braves.