Six unanswered goals spelled a playoff opening triumph for the Marauders.
The Okotoks Marauders continued their season-long run of late game excellence into the postseason with a six-goal comeback to erase a 10-5 deficit and take Game 1 of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League Jr. B Tier I South Division semifinal over the Calgary Mountaineers by an 11-10 count on July 16 at the Murray Arena.
“The stress levels for me and the coaching staff has been high, I feel like I’m aging in dog years this year,” said Marauders head coach Don Haynes, with a laugh. “We’ve done it so many times that the boys feel pretty comfortable in those situations.
“We’ve got a lot of playmakers out there and we don’t have to zero in on one guy, we can move the ball around and then get looks and it’s comforting to be able to finish those off.”
Wallace MacRae tallied the game winner on the powerplay with just 2:07 left in regulation after drawing the penalty on an aggressive move to the net.
“We’ve been a cutthroat team all season,” MacRae said. “If you look at our record, it’s lots of third period comebacks, lots of third period wins. We know what we have to do and we trust everyone on the o-gate.
“I was lucky to draw that penalty and then we just do what we do on the powerplay. Offence had a big game, stepped it up in the third and the defence locked it down, a great all around team win.”
Calgary took a 9-5 advantage into the second intermission on the strength of a six-goal effort in the middle frame.
“I said four goals in 20 minutes, that’s very doable with our squad,” the coach added. “And just be hungry, be hungry for the net, be hungry for loose balls and soon as they started getting after it, good things happened.”
Jackson Foord paced the offence with five goals and seven points, Brevin Lauzier added a goal and four assists with David Bevis, Caiden Moon, Jacob Harlow and affiliate player Dexter Hannigan adding the other markers.
Evan Bates had a game-high six goals for the visitors with Okotokian Justin Rea chipping in with a goal and two helpers.
“We’ll take the win,” Haynes said. “We came out slow, they were getting all of the loose balls and were winning every draw but one in the first period and you get a little scattered.
“I think the boys had the jitters, especially on the back gate their coming out, and then they settle in and start pressuring them and they didn’t really have too much in the third period.”
MacRae, an alternate captain, said the team has bigger goals on the heels of a record-setting 14-6 record in the regular season that stretch to provincials and a shot at national glory.
“The whole goal this year is get as many wins as we can,” MacRae said. “We broke the all time franchise record for wins, but the goal is to win the Larry Bishop and then head to Brampton for the Founders’ Cup and anything less than that would be a failure in all of our eyes.
“We’ve got a great group of guys and we’re changing the culture here.”
Okotoks closed out the series as switched to Calgary’s Acadia Rec Centre for Game 2 on July 17 in a 12-8 triumph.
MacRae paced the offence with a four-goal evening with Foord adding a goal and six assists along with tallies from Lauzier, Hannigan, Moon, Jake Stegerman, Matt Mantei, Gavin Sundwall and Brandon Jarman.
The Marauders will face the top-seed in the South, the high-octane Calgary Shamrocks in the next round of the playoffs. The best-of-three set gets underway on July 21 at Calgary's Stu Peppard Arena. Game 2 is an 8 p.m. start on July 23 at the Murray Arena.
For full schedule information go to rockymountainlax.com.
