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| Austin Staats and Chiefs fans share the joy of Six Nations final goal in their Game 6 win. (Photo: Tim Prothero) |
For the third year in a row, the Major
Series Lacrosse championship will come down to Game 7 between the
Peterborough Lakers and Six Nations Chiefs. Six Nations made sure of
that Thursday night by roaring out to a 6-0 lead and hanging on for a
10-7 win, their third straight after the Lakers had won the first
three games of the series.
Chiefs head coach Rich Kilgour
expressed deep appreciation for what lacrosse fans have seen over the
last three finals as each team has won a seven-game series and now
each team has three wins in this series.
“It's 10-10 in the past three years
and I'd bet the goals are within one or two,” Kilgour said.
“They're a great team, I like to think we're a great team. They're
well-coached, I like to think I'm a halfway good coach once in a
while. It's been great lacrosse. It's been mean, it's been rough.
It's been up, it's been down. It doesn't get any better than this.”
This season has seen a strange series.
Peterborough overcame a four-goal third-period deficit to win Game 1
in double overtime. The Lakers edged Six Nations by a goal in Game 2.
Peterborough extended its lead to a stunning 3-0 with a blowout win
in Game 3.
Then it was Six Nations' turn. They put
on an historical display of defence and goaltending in an 8-1 Game 4
win and Dillon Ward continued to shine as the Chiefs won Game
5 by an 8-6 score.
That set the stage for Thursday night
at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena and the Chiefs were ready to roll
again. Peterborough outshot Six Nations 17-9 in the first period but
Ward was perfect while Randy Staats bookended a Stephen
Keogh marker with a pair of goals to make it 3-0 Chiefs after 20
minutes.
Cody Jamieson, playing on a knee
that will require surgery after the season, scored the first two
goals of the second period and Keogh added another to make it 6-0,
almost as shocking a development as when Peterborough had gone up 7-0
in Game 3.
Even when Peterborough got things going
in th second period with an Adam Jones goal, Dhane Smith
replied just 20 seonds later and it was 7-1 before the midway point
of the game. Evan Kirk took a turn in the spotlight for the
Lakers, making 16 saves in the second period to keep Peterborough
from being run out of the rink. When Kirk started a breakout that
ended in a Nick Weiss goal at 18:12 of the second, the score
was 7-3 and it felt like the Lakers were building some momentum and
may just get back into the game.
Turner Evans, appearing in his
first game of the series, beat Ward 37 seconds into the third to keep
the Lakers comeback attempt on track. A flurry of goals followed a
few minutes later. Staats got it going with his hat trick goal at
3:10. Shawn Evans scored 39 seconds after that. Smith finished
off a break that started from Ward's stick another 32 seconds later.
Then Dylan Evans ripped a sidearm past Ward just 16 seconds
after Smith had scored.
The score was 9-6 and the arena was
absolutely buzzing. Both goalies put the clamps on the scoring for a
while. Ward was far busier as the Lakers peppered him with 22
third-period shots—they outshot the Chiefs 53-38 overall—and he
was the major difference in the period. Ward made save after save to
deflate the hopes of Lakers' fans.
Those hopes got pumped up again a bit
when captain Scott Self finished off a transition chance with
an outside shot that snuck inside the post to make it 9-7 with just
under nine minutes to play. The Lakers continued to have the better
of the chances in the third but Ward wasn't letting them within one
goal. When Austin Staats—who again this game went to the dressing
room after being banged up returned to the floor—scored at 13:17,
it was the final nail in the Lakers' coffin for Game 6.
Dan Dawson, who directed much of
the Chiefs offence and wound up with 5 assists in the game, echoed
Kilgour's credo that it's important to focus on the journey rather
than the destination.
“We're getting back to the basics,
doing the little things right. When you do that, usually the big
things take care of themselves,” Dawson said. “That's loose
balls, getting back to the bench hard and staying out of the penalty
box. Those are the things you can control. The other things you can't
focus on. We got away from that for three games.”
Dawson suggested the Chiefs won't be
overconfident after winning three straight games, just as they didn't
lose their confidence when they lost three straight. He said the
Chiefs are excited to be going to Game 7 and they'll be ready to play
Saturday night at 7 pm in Peterborough.
“This is why you play lacrosse, for
these moments, and we're going to be in tough. They've got a hometown
crowd that supports them no matter what they do and you know the
place is going to be jumping on Saturday night. The best team on that
night is going to win that game. It's going to come down to
execution, that's the bottom line.”
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| Eric Shewell and Stephen Keogh exchanged blows in a late-game fight that captured the tone of the intense battle between the teams. (Photo: Tim Prothero) |
Lakers defender Brad Self said
there wasn't a lot of difference between the two teams in Game 6. “A
couple of bounces here and there. You saw it on the first goal,” he
said of Randy Staats' opening marker on which a shot caromed off the
back boards straight to Staats. “We played solid D, they get a
bounce and it winds up in the back of our net. That's the game of
lacrosse.”
Carrying over the way their effort from
the second and third periods will be critical if they want to succeed
in finally getting the decisive fourth win in the series Saturday.
“Whether you want to call it momentum
or whatever it is, that's the way we need to play. That's the way we
played all year long and that's the way we played in the first three
games and the end of the Oakville series. We have to continue to play
that way and remember how we played and bring the same fire and
passion in Game 7,” Self reflected. “We played with desperation.
We started pushing the pace a little bit, played hungry and
aggressive. It started working for us. We need to continue to do
that.”
Dylan Evans said the Lakers weren't
pleased with the way they began the game, but the way they finished
it helped restore their confidence for Game 7.
“We got off to a slow start. Going
down six-nothing is a tough one to come back and we were trying to
claw back the entire game,” Evans said. “We feel good about how
we finished the game. There's still a lot of things we need to
correct along the way. We're looking forward to Saturday.”
The teams aren't the only ones looking
forward to the game. Tickets for Saturday are going fast at the
Peterborough Memorial Centre. You can get
yours online.
If you can't make it to the game in
person, you can watch
it live on JVI Sports Network's free webcast thanks to game
sponsors Arrow Express Sports, the ILA Sports Store and the
Dreamcatcher Fund.
