Penalties summed up the 9-5 loss by St. Albert Miners against the visiting Spruce Grove Slash on Wednesday night.
The defending senior B provincial champions jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first period with two tallies by Graedon Cornfield and one by Shane Lopatynski. However, their trips to the penalty box quickly became their downfall in the second, resulting in a lead change of 7-4 in favour of the Slash.
The sudden change in play between the two periods was also related to a lack of effort on the Miners, according to assistant coach Vay Diep.
“It starts from guys not showing up to practice, that’s all I have to say,” said Diep.
The onslaught to the penalty box continued in the third, this time for both squads. The final game tally was 125 minutes. Brady Cook also had a pair of fights for the Miners and goalie Jon Marrese was tossed from the game with 4:08 to play.
“I'm not going to question the penalties,” said Diep.
To make matters worse for the Miners, head coach Chris Stachniak received a game misconduct for his banter towards the officials with 5:11 remaining.
“It starts from the coaching staff. If we are complaining about the referees, then it feeds down to the bench. Nobody did their job today, including ourselves,” said Diep.
Rounding out the scoring for the Miners (5-4-1) was Sean Reid in the second and Jordan Cornfield’s shorthanded effort in the third.
The Slash struck twice on the power play and once shorthanded. Shaun Wilhelm paced the attack with three goals and three assists.
Mike Koch also dropped the gloves twice for the Slash and Geoff Wright was handed a two-minute elbowing minor and game ejection early in the second.
The loss was hard to take against a team that is currently positioned last in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League.
“They won the game but basically we beat ourselves today and that’s what we believe and what we know and on Saturday against the Outlaws we will be the Alberta champs that we are,” said Diep. “We’ll just go back to practice tomorrow and work hard at it. We have all the confidence in the world; it’s a tight group.”
Game time tonight against the Edmonton Outlaws is 6:30 p.m. at Bill Hunter Arena. Last week in St. Albert the Miners beat the Outlaws 12-5 after losses of 11-6 and 8-7.
