Mitch Wilde once scored 19 goals
in a Junior B season, but it was still stunning to see him take a
perfect over-the-shoulder breakout pass from goalie Mike Poulin,
break away from a pursuing Nic Grasby, throw a hard, hard shot
fake low then dunk the ball in over the shoulder of Tye Belanger
for the winning goal in last night's 7-6 Kitchener-Waterloo Kodiaks
win over the Oakville Rock. Wilde is a big, rugged defender who was
playing his third game in Major Series Lacrosse after graduating from
the Whitby Warriors Junior A program.
“First shot I had that one breakaway
and I shot it right in his pads,” Wilde said. “Poulie pointed out
that he likes to dip low and I saw [Jamie]
Rooney put it short side so I threw a couple of fakes
and put it short side and it ended up going in.” It's all part of
the learning process for a young player, Wilde added. “Just
watching all the veteran guys, taking notes on what they do and try
to implement that into my game day by day, game by game, shift by
shift.”
Just what he's up against was made
clear for Wilde last week when KW played the league-leading Brooklin
Redmen. “The speed's a lot different and the guys are a lot bigger,
but it's fun. It's exciting. You get to play with respected players
in the league. I mean, Shawn Williams is my gym teacher and I got to
play against him last week. It's exciting stuff. I'm just out here
playing the game I love.”
Wilde's goal at 17:36 of the third
period gave KW just their second lead of a game in which the teams
traded goals throughout with Oakville generally striking first. Corey
Fowler, playing his first game with KW since coming over in a
trade with Six Nations, led the Kodiaks in scoring with 2 goals and 2
assists. Veteran Jamie Rooney had a fairly quiet night until
the third period, when he scored a pair of crucial goals, each of
which tied the game and the latter of which came just over a minute
before Wilde's winnner.
Kyle Aquin, playing his first
game with the Rock, looked better and better as the game wore on and
wound up with a hat trick. Belanger was excellent in goal for
Oakville and the Rock generally did a good job of defusing the potent
KW transition game. “Kitchener runs the ball real real hard and
that's 90% of what they do is they want to push and keep pushing and
pushing,” said Oakville Head Coach Phil Sanderson. “So you
have to play a 25-second shot clock against them or they will run the
ball right down your throat. We wanted to recognize that and get guys
off so we can get our D guys out.”
Sanderson felt his team played a solid
game at both ends of the floor; they just need to “minimize the
brain farts. We had seven bad shifts tonight and they ended up
capitalizing on that and that's usually the difference in this game,
is whoever has more bad shifts.”
Oakville's next game is this Saturday
at 2 pm when they play host to the Brampton Excelsiors. KW returns to
the floor Wednesday night at Brooklin in a game you can watch via
live webcast.
