The St. Albert Miners are one win away from a second straight trip to the Presidents‘ Cup after slaying the Calgary Knights twice in the senior B lacrosse final.
The defending provincial champions can punch their tickets to nationals by sweeping the best-of-five series Friday night in Crossfield after beating the Knights 7-5 and 7-6 at Performance Arena in Servus Credit Union Place.
“We’ve got to go there and finish them off. We’re not going to sit back and be relaxed at all,” said Sean Reid, a reliable offensive contributor for the Miners after Sunday’s one-goal margin of victory. “We’ve had two close, relatively low-scoring games and we want to go there and pile in the goals. Our goal is to keep our D playing the same way. They’ve been awesome. But our O guys have got to start clicking and keep going to the net.”
If needed, game four goes Saturday afternoon in Crossfield, and the fifth and deciding game would be Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Performance Arena.
“We deserve to win this series and we’re going to try to wrap it up Friday,” said netminder David Marrese, the best player on the floor last weekend. “These guys know what it takes to bury them on Friday. Compared to them, our experience in these situations allowed us to win these games. A lot of these guys were in playoffs in junior and last year, being such a new team, the experience of winning provincials and going to nationals allowed us to gain a lot of big game experience and that showed in both games.”
The Knights are a dangerous foe after sweeping the Okotoks Raiders, the first-place team in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League and last year’s provincial finalists, in the best-of-five semifinals.
“They peaked at the right time,” Marrese said. “The Okotoks Raiders didn’t have the same team as they did last year and [the Knights] have got a good group of players and they’re giving us the best games we’ve had all year. They deserve to be in this series.”
In both games, the Knights outscored the Miners in the last two periods after falling behind 5-1 Saturday and 3-0 Sunday.
“It was 4-3 going into the second intermission today, and yesterday it was 7-3 and we didn’t even put one away in the third period, but today we managed to put a few in, which helped us,” Marrese said. “We always start out strong and then we tend to relax a little bit and teams start to chip away at us. Sometimes we run into trouble and we don’t put goals away in the third period, but we always manage to find a way to win and that’s what makes a good team.”
The Knights didn’t look like a fourth-place team that finished with four fewer wins and eight fewer points than the second-place Miners (12-5-1).
“They don’t let up, that’s the big thing. A lot of teams that we’ve played this year, once we get three, like we did in the first period today to go up 3-0, most teams slow down and let up. But against these guys we can’t seem to get that final few on them and make them fold up. They always come back,” Reid said. “They’ve also got a great goaltender [Alex Coutts]. In my opinion, Dave is the best goalie in the league but they easily have the second-best goalie in the league. He’s the third goalie for the [Calgary] Roughnecks and is really good.”
In the playoff opener, offensive standout Graedon Cornfield and the elusive Shane Lopatynski potted two goals apiece and Kyle Schram also connected to put the Miners on top 5-1 after 20 minutes. Steven Zwack and Cornfield scored in the second period. Steve Tessarola, Chris Schmidt and Jason Riley finished with two assists apiece.
The Knights converted three power play chances against the most penalized team in the league.
Seven different Miners scored in game two: Schmidt, Reid and Cornfield in the first period, Jordan Cornfield in the middle frame and Schram, Nick Petz and captain Nate Schmidt on a howitzer from inside the blueline on the power play to make it 7-3 with 8:01 to play in the third.
Three of the goals came on the power play. The Knights were held to one, despite lots of man advantage time in the opening period, including a five-minute major to Lopatynski for trying to decapitate Brad McDonald with a cross-check to the back of the neck.
“It was a hard-fought battle. I loved it out there. It was one of the closest games we’ve had all year,” Reid said. “Both teams were playing their game and both goalies stood on their heads.”
Reid, 23, avoided a lengthy benching after serving a needless cross-checking penalty by scoring a breakaway goal on a Hail Mary pass from Marrese, who recorded three assists last weekend.
“I took a selfish penalty and I was kicking myself in the box, just praying they wouldn’t score,” said the product of the North Edmonton Wizards. “With about five seconds left in the penalty, I’m just praying they shoot the ball and we get it back, and they did. I stormed right out and Dave threw me a pass. I just ran in, faked [Coutts] high and used my long arms and reached around and put it in.”
Scoring is not Reid’s forte, despite filling the net 20 times in 16 games for 62 points, second only to Graedon Cornfield’s league-high 66.
“I’ve always been the assist guy. My goal is always to get at least one goal a game, but my biggest thing is I like to make a pass. That’s always been my game — find my other players and make them look better and get them good looks,” said the league’s top setup man with 40 assists.
Things got interesting late in Sunday’s tilt, as the Knights stormed back with three unanswered goals in the last six minutes. With 25 seconds to go, after a Calgary timeout, the Knights pulled their goalie and with the extra attacker feverishly passed the ball around for the tying marker. After a tricky save by Marrese, a desperate backhand attempt sailed wide of the net to end the game.
Marrese, 24, was the difference between the Miners going up 2-0 or the Knights leaving St. Albert with a split in the series. The St. Albert Rams alumni made several highlight-reel saves, especially in the latter stages of the second period and throughout the third when the Knights revved up their offence.
At the 2010 nationals, the Bellerose Composite High School graduate stopped 184 out of 240 shots in six games for a 9.41 GAA and .767 save percentage for the sixth-place 2-4 Miners.
This year’s nationals run Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 at Cornwall Island, Ont.
“Everyone would be really, really excited to go back to nationals again because we didn’t have our best showing last year. I think everyone was a little bit timid at some of the players that we were up playing against. … We’re not going to be timid this year if we get in there,” said Marrese, who completed his fourth and final season of field lacrosse with the New York-based Dominican College Chargers this year and will throw his name into the mix for the upcoming National Lacrosse League draft.
