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Captain
Dan Teat Leads the way
The Brampton Excelsiors jumped out
to a 2-0 series lead before the first break in the
grueling best of seven series to determine the Mann
Cup Champions with a 6-5 win on Saturday night.
The Powerade Centre was once again bustling with
a lot of gold and vocal fans in the stands, and
they were treated to another great lacrosse game.
Prior to the game the Orangeville Northmen Junior
A coaching staff (all former Excelsiors) were honoured
and brought the Minto Cup with them. This was especially
symbolic as the Minto will be hosted at the Powerade
Centre next August and it is extremely rare that
both trophies are ever in the same location.
As in game 1, New Westminster got
the first goal of night early in the first period.
Dan Teat brought the Excelsior's back to even after
receiving a beautiful cross crease pass from Brodie
Merrill. Both teams and goaltenders played extremely
well all night and it wasn't until there was two
minutes left in the first that Dan Teat put another
one past goal tender Matt Roik to give Brampton
the lead.
Brampton would go on to score the
next two in the first five minutes of the second
period from Colin Doyle and Aaron Wilson before
the Salmonbellies would put their second goal on
the board. Brampton's Blaine Manning would score
his first of the night with 7 minutes to go playing
a great pick and roll with Dan Dawson to regain
the 3 goal advantage to end the period.
Blaine would score the first of
the third period as well five minutes into the final
frame, but New Westminster would get that one back
less than a minute later. The two teams continued
to play near perfect defense and the question was
would the Brampton team be able to hold on. With
5 minutes to go New Westminster began to pull their
goalie. New Westminster's leading scorer Ilija Gajic
would grab a loose ball in the Brampton end and
took an incredible behind the back shot to pull
them back within one. They continued to press the
attack and were rewarded with another goal with
22 seconds left to go in the game. They won the
ensuing face-off and quickly called a time-out to
set up one last attempt to tie up the game, but
Anthony Cosmo made the save with three seconds left
to secure the win for Brampton.
Players of the game were Jordon
Hall for New Westminster and Dan Teat for Brampton.
Game 3 takes place at 7:30 Monday night at the Powerade
Centre. Tickets windows will open up at 5:00 but
are available through guest services as of 10:00
Monday morning.
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