The St. Albert Miners dug themselves out of a dangerous hole Sunday to even their semifinal series with the Calgary Mountaineers in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League.
Buried underneath a ton of penalties, the Miners emerged unscathed to topple the Mountaineers 14-13 in game two in the best-of-five senior B playoff after dropping an 11-10 decision in double overtime the day before.
"Everyone had a chip on their shoulder and a bad taste in their mouth because we knew we should've taken that first game and not even let it go to overtime, so today we really had that extra jump in our step and a little bit of anger from that loss," said Jason Riley, a transition player in the thick of things in game two with two goals and eight minutes in penalties.
The difference between the two games at Northstar Hyundai Arena was defence, explained netminder Dave Marrese.
"That was two totally different teams in regards to our defensive play," said the Miners' shot stopper. "We don't have too many games that go over 10 goals so this is a different kind of series for us. They've got a very potent offence and our offence is firing on all cylinders so today, as opposed to yesterday, we really had to look and dig deep back on our defence and make sure that they were not getting into the middle, not getting any easy looks and just try to keep them to the outside and I think we did a really good job of that today. I don't think the score was really indicative of how our defence played."
After racking up three unanswered goals before the five-minute mark, the Miners never relinquished the lead despite five power-play tallies and one shorthanded effort by the Mountaineers.
The Miners struck 11 times at even strength while posting period leads of 5-2 and 11-10.
"It was a real good battle between their defence and our offence and then alternately our defence and their offence," Riley said.
In the middle frame the Mountaineers tied it at six during a five-on-three power play and with 4:12 left in the second made it nine apiece. They finished the period with four goals with the man advantage.
The Miners played the majority of the second on the penalty kill while serving 28 of their game-high 36 PIM. The majority of penalties called were justified.
"Our second periods seem to have been plagued by that all year," Riley said "We'll definitely work on that and make improvements for the remainder of the series and not get too energized and too crazy on the bench."
The Mountaineers were whistled for one major and one minor overall – all in the first period.
In the third, 55 seconds after the Mountaineers knotted it at 11, Graedon Cornfield fired his third goal of the game and captain Nate Schmidt potted the last two goals, including a shortie on a spectacular play inside the Mountaineers' blueline to steal a bouncing ball away from a defender for an uncontested breakaway to put the Miners up 13-11.
Schmidt, the league's top point producer for the second straight year with 57 in 25 games, was outstanding with six goals and two assists.
"Nate had an extraordinary game," Riley said.
The Mountaineers were poised to send the game into overtime after Tyler Melnyk sniped his team-leading sixth goal, a power-play effort with 4:01 remaining, and then Don Haynes filled the net with 36 seconds to play but the Miners buckled down to preserve the win.
"We did a really good job of bouncing back today," said Marrese, who celebrated his 26th birthday Sunday with three assists and a clutch save to end the game.
The third was a free-flowing period as the Miners, the second-most penalized team in league play, toned downed their roughhouse tactics.
"I think guys kind of learned their lesson and at that point the game is really on the line so guys are maybe thinking twice about taking a stick swing or making a dumb play," said Riley, 24.
The former junior B St. Albert Merchants' defenceman wired both of his goals in the first, with the second score set up by a long bomb pass by Marrese.
"It was just spectacular play Davey," Riley said.
Tyler Douglas, Jordan Cornfield and Chad Gendall also scored and Josh Sullivan added three assists.
OT heartbreaker
Saturday's playoff lid-lifter between the second-place Miners (11-5) and third-place Mountaineers (9-6) was decided on Matt Quinton's controversial sudden-death goal 57 seconds into the second OT period.
"It's so hard for me (to describe the goal) because I'm focusing on the shot. I don't see his feet. The ref said it was a good goal but I've had plenty of people tell me that were standing right behind the net that guy had at least a whole foot in the crease," Marrese said of Quinton's hat-trick score. "There is no replays and no challenges so you've just got to deal with it and move on."
In the first OT frame the teams exchanged goals. Riley pulled the trigger with under two minutes to go to tie it at 10.
The Mountaineers pushed it to OT with two goals in the last 6:37 minutes of regulation time, including the equalizer with 65 seconds to play.
The Miners led 5-4 after the first and 7-5 after two periods.
Chris Schmidt's hat-trick and Gendall's four assists paced the attack. Nate Schmidt and Jordan Cornfield pumped in two goals apiece and David Ahl, and Graedon Cornfield also scored.
The Mountaineers, the least penalized team in the regular season, were assessed 22 PIM, compared to only six for the Miners, who scored the only power-play goal in game one.
The series resumes this weekend at Stu Peppard Arena in Calgary. Game three goes Friday at 8 p.m. and game four is set for 5 p.m. Saturday.
If needed, game five is on tap Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in St. Albert
The winner will play the 2012 champion Rockyview Knights or the Edmonton Outlaws in the best-of-five final to represent Alberta at the Presidents' Cup national championship, Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 at the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve in Quebec.
"It's hard to win two in Calgary so we've got to start off the way we did today, get some goals and make sure that we continue that pressure and energy throughout game three. It's a late game too on Friday. A lot of us are going to be rushed to get to Calgary. They didn't change the time of the game but we're going to use that as fuel for the fire," said Marrese, the Edmonton Rush's third-string netminder who spent two months with the Langley Thunder of the Western Lacrosse Association before rejoining the Miners for the last four games before the playoffs.
