OKOTOKS, Alta. – A pair of lopsided victories Tuesday have clarified the Minto Cup playoff picture.
Mark Matthews had four goals and five assists to lead the Whitby Warriors in their 19-3 rout of Edmonton in the final round-robin pairings of Canada’s indoor lacrosse junior championship.
The loss officially eliminated the Eclipse from the tournament.
Later, Jackson Decker had a hat trick and an assist as the Coquitlam Adanacs handled the host Okotoks Raiders 12-1.
The two wins settled the Minto Cup’s seedings for the playoffs. No. 2 Whitby will play third-seeded Okotoks in the semifinal Wednesday. The winner will play top-ranked Coquitlam in a best-of-three final starting Friday.
Curtis Knight had the first two goals of the game for Whitby (2-1), then added another in the second period to complete his hat trick. Knight also had four assists.
Luke Laszkiewicz also had a hat trick for the Warriors, while Mark Cockerton and Chad Tutton both scored twice. John LaFontaine, Dan Lintner, Adrian Sorichetti, Shayne Jackson and Zach Palmer all added singles.
“We challenged the guys tonight to bounce back and play 60 minutes. That’s what we did,” said Warriors coach Derek Keenan. “You don’t want to embarrass a team but at the same time, we needed to get better. I don’t think we’ve been very good so far in this tournament.”
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Cole Sheen, Dean Fairall and Kirby Zdrill provided the offence for Edmonton (0-3).
Whitby dominated the game, getting 75 shots on net compared to Edmonton’s 25 and outscoring the Eclipse 8-1 in both the first and second period. The Warriors only let up in third, outscoring Edmonton 3-1.
“I was worried that based on what had happened so far in the tournament that our energy level wasn’t going to be there, that certain guys had come to the conclusion that we weren’t going to advance and that they weren’t going to give the effort that was required today,” Eclipse head coach Rioth Jouma said.
“The thing that has made us competitive all year and made us competitive in the first two games here was our compete level and we just didn’t have that today.”
Whitby was 3-for-7 on the power play, while the Eclipse were 1-for-5.
Zach Higgins earned the win in net, stopping 22 shots. Michael DeGirolamo made 56 saves for Edmonton.
In the late game, Casey Jackson, Ben McIntosh and Wesley Berg all scored a pair goals for Coquitlam (3-0).
“It was a game where you could kind of look by it,” said Coquitlam coach Curt Malawsky. “We wanted to make sure we set goals as we came into this tournament and we met a few along the way. One of them was to get into that final weekend. We were able to do that.”
Tyler Garrison, Travis Cornwall and Ryan Johnson added singles in the Adanacs’ rout.
Jake Hayes was the lone scorer for Okotoks (1-2).
“The great thing about this tournament is that you’ve got to take lessons from every game,” Raiders assistant coach Andrew McBride said. ” Getting to play some of the top teams in Canada, you take lessons from that. You’ve got to have a short memory and say you know what, it’s a one game playoff for all the marbles so get out there show all the character and do all the things that we talked about this year.”
Steve Fryer made 24 saves on 25 shots for Coquitlam, while Josh Phillips stopped all five shots he faced in 13:16 of work. Carson Michaud turned aside 11 of 16 shots in the first period for the Raiders. Adam Shute, Michaud’s replacement, made 11 saves on 18 shots in the second and third periods.
The Adanacs were 2-for-5 on the power play, while Okotoks could not score on its one man advantage.
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