A wild roller-coaster ride ended with the St. Albert Miners on an emotional high after Sunday’s senior B tussle against the Calgary Mountaineers.
Leading by a goal after the first period, the Miners were outscored 6-3 in the middle frame and in the third fell behind 9-7 with 12 minutes remaining before closing out the entertaining contest with three unanswered markers to win 10-9 at Northstar Hyundai Arena.
“We showed a lot of heart coming back through adversity like that,” said captain Nate Schmidt. “We came out of the gate with probably the best first period we’ve played all year up 3-2. Our defence played awesome. Then we got a bunch of penalties in the second period that got us behind. We were down two going into the third but then came back for a big victory.”
Trailing 5-2 in the second, the Mountaineers roared back with six straight goals before Jordan Cornfield ended the period with the first of his two goals.
The Miners were also penalized three times in the second and the Mountaineers made them pay the price every time.
In the last period the teams exchanged tallies before Schmidt drilled his second of the game during a man advantage and 38 seconds later set up Cornfield during a delayed penalty call to knot it at nine with 9:35 to go.
The Miners then dug deep to kill off an interference infraction against Derek Draper, backed by three clutch saves by rookie Leland Lebreque.
Forty-one seconds after the penalty expired, Chris Schmidt was assessed a double minor for a hit from behind that sent a Mountaineer crashing into the boards by the Calgary bench. No call was initially made on the play, but after the two referees had a chat they sent the Miners’ assistant captain, who is also Nate’s older brother, to the sin bin with 6:07 to play.
A superb penalty kill by the Miners featured more ball possession than their visitors. When the Mountaineers did set up shop in St. Albert’s end they struggled to get a decent shot on net. Their best scoring chance was a breakaway opportunity that missed the mark with 75 seconds left on the power play.
Back at full strength, the veteran Schmidt hit a wide-open Graedon Cornfield streaking towards the net and the offensive threat fired a rocket past Joe Tallis with 1:57 left in the game.
“We had a great kill. We had a couple of good offensive possessions where we ragged a lot off the clock and our defence and goalie stood on their heads for that four minutes. After that, when Chris came out of the box, we were ready to go and he made a wicked pass to Graedon to score that final goal for the game winner,” Schmidt said.
The Miners were whistled for eight minors overall compared to three for the Mountaineers, all in the third period, in a game that featured some iffy officiating even by lacrosse standards.
A balanced scoring attack by the Miners was highlighted by a pair from Mike Blondin and singles by Draper, Ryan Davis and Tyler Douglas, who scored a beauty with a spinarama move in front of Tallis to start the third.
Lebreque finished strong in net after a shaky middle period. He also backstopped the Miners to a 10-9 win over the Mountaineers on May 11 in Calgary.
Lebreque and Matt Hiebert have alternated as the Miners shot stoppers after Grant MacLeod started the first two games. The trio have done a solid job replacing all-star Dave Marrese. The third-string Edmonton Rush netminder has hooked up with the senior A Langley Thunder.
“Dave was a huge part of our team for the last three years. He is an unbelievable goaltender, but he is playing senior A now in Langley and we’re pretty proud of him for that,” Schmidt said. “However we do have these three goalies and they’re playing really well and they’ve all gained victories for us this season. We’ve shown we can win with any of them in net and it gives us positivity going forward.”
The Miners are now 5-1 in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League.
“We’re feeling pretty good about ourselves but (our record) means nothing yet,” Schmidt said. “Our goal at the end of the season is to be first in the league. We want home floor advantage throughout the playoffs.”
The Rockyview Knights of Airdrie are 5-0. Last year the Knights ended the Miners’ two-year reign as provincial champions by winning the best-of-five final in four games.
“We know there are a couple of teams from Calgary that are really good. These guys (3-3 Mountaineers) and the Knights are our competition for sure,” Schmidt said.
The Miners are a quicker team with more depth than last year’s group that finished 13-10-1 overall.
“We’re tiring teams out. We’re running a lot and we’re playing a faster pace,” Schmidt said. “We still have the same core group but we’ve got a lot of new younger players too so it’s different this year in that respect.”
Schmidt, 25, is still the straw that stirs the drink for the Miners, despite a slow start offensively by his high standards. The 2012 recipient of the Harris Toth Award as the league’s top scorer in the regular season with 28 goals (one more than Graedon Cornfield) and 64 points in 14 games has been good but not great this season with 10 goals and 22 points in six games after his three-point performance Sunday.
“A scoring title means nothing for me, but winning the provincial championship does,” said the 2012 playoff scoring leader with 25 goals, including 12 on the power play, and 39 points in eight games. “I feel I’m playing good, I’m just not putting up the same numbers as last year but they will come. If they don’t it’s not a big deal because there are other guys who will pick up the slack for me. We’ve got so much depth on this team right now that I don’t need to be scoring a bunch of goals every game.”
Friday the Miners play the Edmonton Outlaws (1-3) at home at 8 p.m.
