By TRT Staff with notes from arenalacrosseleague.ca
SIX NATIONS — The Eastern Arena Lacrosse League season came to an end this past weekend with the Six Nations Snipers falling short in their championship run. With a semi-final set against the Toronto Monarchs, the Snipers put up a fight away from home.
On Friday night at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre (TRAC), down 2-1 to the Snipers early, Toronto got on a seven goal run, opening up an 8-2 lead just minutes into the second quarter. Joel Taylor, Tanner Buck and Henry Follows led the Monarchs charge. By halftime Toronto had built a 13-5 lead and were cruising along. The Snipers made it interesting in the fourth putting together a four goal run, but the Monarchs held strong for the 19-13 victory.
Cheyton King (4g,4a), Justin Porga (2g,4a) and Travis Staats (2g,1a) led the Six Nations offence. Tyler Vanevery (0g,4a) and Brent Longboat (0g,3a) were the playmakers. Cheyton King was awarded a third place star for his performance.
On the other side, the Paris RiverWolves took on the Brampton Express.
The RiverWolves put together a great first quarter jumping out to a 4-1 lead. The Express got rolling in the second quarter with a four goal run to take a 5-4 lead. This was an exciting first half having the game tied on four separate occasions, until Brampton finally took a two goal lead, scoring both inside the last two minutes of the quarter. The score at halftime was 9-7 for Brampton.
The Express started to pull away with three goals (including a shorthanded marker) to start the second half, and though the RiverWolves would fight valiantly, they wouldn’t be able to catch Brampton who won 16-12 to punch their ticket to the championship game.
The two winning teams squared off at the TRAC later on Saturday night.
Great goaltending, and stingy defences were the order of the day in this battle for the championship. Bailey Brown made 43 saves in the victory, while Lucas Nagy was equally as impressive with 44 saves for Brampton. The game was a back and forth struggle all night being tied on five separate occasions. Neither team had a bigger lead than two goals at any point in the game.
The final score was 10-8, for the Monarchs, the first Eastern ALL Cup Championship for the franchise.
