Saturday’s confrontation between the top two senior B teams in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League unfolded the way the Rockyview Knights expected it would against the St. Albert Miners.
“We hadn’t played in a week and we had only one practice this week so I thought we would come out of the gate a little bit slow. They played last night (13-12 win against the Edmonton Outlaws) and they had their sticks ready to go. I thought we would fall behind early and then I expected us to come back, particularly in the third because we’ve been doing that all year so far,” explained Ron Morash, captain of the Airdrie-based Knights, after the 12-10 win in front of less than 40 fans at Northstar Hyundai Arena.
The Miners controlled the opening 20 minutes and capitalized twice with the man advantage to lead 5-3.
Matt Hiebert's netminding exploits kept the Knights under wraps in the period, and then in the middle frame he faced a flurry of shots but the Miners never relinquished the lead despite being outscored 3-2 on the strength of two power-play goals by the visitors.
Down 7-6 to start the third the Knights struck four times on the power play as the Miners scrambled to regain the lead. Tyler Douglas pulled the Miners even at eight apiece on a great feed by Aiden Inglis at 4:06 and captain Nate Schmidt labeled a shot at 12:00 to knot it at 10.
Twenty-eight seconds later, Greg Bradley deposited the winner from the side of the net for the only even-strength goal of the period by the Knights.
Ricky Acorn's fourth goal of the night for the Knights with 2:15 remaining was scored with Nick Petz of the Miners serving four minutes for charging and unsportsmanlike conduct. The double minor was issued with 5:29 to play. The insurance tally by Acorn followed a two-minute four-on four-stint with limited scoring opportunities by both teams.
“It’s a tough one to lose. A couple of bad penalties at the end, just some undisciplined play, and it ended up biting us in the end,” said Douglas, an offence/transition runner. “We came out of the gate pretty hard and we were up a few goals going into the second. We came out for the second pretty hard as well, then kind of teetered in the last five minutes. After that we were trailing for most of the game and just couldn’t keep pace.”
Mark Scherman also poured in four goals for the Knights, who took their first lead of the game at 8-7 at 2:23 in the third by a wide-open Steve Schorn in front of Hiebert for his second of the period.
“We didn’t panic being down two or three goals. We slowly chipped away. At the same time we tried getting our bench to be a little more cohesive,” Morash said.
It was the first time the teams crossed paths since game four in the best-of-five provincial final. The Knights wore down the injury-riddled Miners in the third with five shorthanded goals, two on the power player and one at even strength to break a 4-4 tie to defeat the 2010 and 2011 provincial champions 12-7 in Spruce Grove.
“This is a big win for us. These guys are huge rivals. We always get up for this game when we come out to St. Albert,” said Morash, a defence/transition runner who is part of a strong returning core of Knights. “We’re a little quicker and we have a little more offensive punch as well this year.”
“It was a bit of a grudge match for sure,” added Douglas. “They're also the top team in the south and we’ve always had kind of a little rivalry with them, but for the most part we approached it like any other game and they were just another team.”
The Miners dropped to 6-4 and the 2012 Presidents’ Cup national bronze medallists are 9-0.
Last year four wins and seven points separated the first-place Knights and third-place Miners in the standings.
“The league this year is so tight. Every game we’ve been in has been by a couple of goals except for one of them and that’s about it. Most of them were sort of come from behind wins also,” Morash said.
The third loss in for games by the Miners took the shine off David Ahl’s hat-trick performance, Jordan Cornfield's one goal and four assists and Schmidt’s four-point outing.
Matt Hansen potted a pair, Chad Gendall and Chris Schmidt sniped one goal apiece, Steve Tessarola added three assists and Hiebert had two helpers for seven this season.
Friday night at Bill Hunter Arena the Miners ended a two-game winless skid by out-scoring the Outlaws 4-1 in the third en route to their fourth one-goal margin of victory this season.
The Miners led 6-3 after the first but trailed 11-9 entering the third.
Ahl and Gendall racked up three goals apiece and Cornfield did his damage on special teams with goals shorthanded and on the power play, in addition to two assists.
Josh Sullivan notched one goal and two assists and Tessarola, Jason Riley, Nate Schmidt and Chris Schmidt also scored against the Outlaws (4-4-), who beat the Miners 9-7 last month in St. Albert.
“Everything is a must-win from here on out,” said Douglas, who wasn’t in the lineup Friday. “The parity in the league this year is just so tight that every game is a big game from start to finish so we just approach every team we play like it’s a new game and a new day.”
Douglas, 26, a product of the St. Albert Rams Lacrosse Club, has provided the Miners consistent scoring with eight goals in six games. Last year the Bellerose Composite High School alumnus recorded 11 goals and five assists in 15 games.
“I’ve got no complaints how I’ve played so far this year. I’m getting the ball in the back of the net but I like to find a few open guys and get some more apples if I could,” said Douglas, who played his NCAA Division II college lacrosse with the Dominican (New York) Chargers in the East Coast Conference.
Tonight the Miners visit the last-place Spruce Grove Slash (1-8) at 7:30 p.m. at Grant Fuhr Arena.
