LACROSSE

Historic repeat for St. Albert Miners as Presidents’ Cup senior B lacrosse champions

BY JEFF HANSEN SEPTEMBER 6, 2017

The St. Albert Miners set the standard for greatness in senior B lacrosse as the repeat winners of the Presidents’ Cup.

The first Alberta team to pull off consecutive national championships while amassing an amazing 57-2-1 mark of distinction during the span of success completed the historic achievement in Sunday’s 7-6 glorious conquest of the Six Nations Rivermen.

“It took essentially everybody that was involved that made this possible to essentially put us in the history books in Canadian lacrosse,” said a happy but tired-sounding head coach Vay Diep in a phone interview Monday morning.

“We couldn’t have done it without the commitment from the players, their families, their wives, their girlfriends, our volunteers and our executive board, everybody that supported us throughout this year,” Diep continued. “I’m very proud and honoured to be a member of the St. Albert Miners Lacrosse Association.”

The eighth victory in nine games at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena, located on the outskirts of Hagersville on the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, finished off a 32-2 superlative season for the Miners that rivalled last year’s spellbinding 25-0-1 national triumph in Leduc as the tournament hosts, which was also the first Presidents’ Cup for an Alberta team since the 2007 Sherwood Park Outlaws were victorious in Owen Sound, Ont.

“This one is different. It’s sweet to win it out east, to win it at Six Nations and to win it in a round robin kind of format where essentially we had to play nine games in eight days and no days off and one day it was a doubleheader,” said Diep, who also coached the 2014 bronze-medal winning Miners (27-3) and all three losses were at nationals in Coquitlam, B.C.

“We also lost a key player on game one with Marshall Just. It was like a nothing/nothing play. He injures his knee and is done for the tournament and he’s a big part of the defence,” Diep added. “It took all 26 guys that we brought out here to make this happen and we brought a full training staff and they were working I would have to say anywhere from 12 to 14 hour days just working out those muscles, aches and pains and just making sure everybody was close to 100 per cent as possible.”

The last team to repeat at nationals was the St. Regis Braves of the Three Nations Senior Lacrosse League in 2011 at Akwesasne, Ont. and 2012 at Spruce Grove.

“It’s great to win it in front of our family like we did (last year) but to come back and win it, to be the only Alberta team to ever repeat as champions and to come on to the Six Nations reserve and basically take the trophy off their land and away from them – it was definitely hostile territory, it was a bit of an aggressive building – so it was definitely sweet,” said captain Jordan Cornfield. “The odds were stacked against us going out there and just the format of the tournament was an absolute grind. Nine games in eight days is something that grown men shouldn’t have to put their bodies through but that was the format of the tournament and we came out on top.

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“It was a big deal for us to do that.”

The perennial Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League provincial champions competed at their third nationals in four years and the fifth since 2010.

Last year the Miners defeated the Kahnawake Mohawks of the Quebec Senior League 12-7 in the final to go 5-0 in the eight-team tournament.

“We have a real strong program. We have a lot of good players and we can’t say enough about our support staff, our team massage therapists and our trainer and equipment manager is second to none in George Turner,” Cornfield said. “From top to bottom our organization is great and we want to keep going in that direction.”

The Miners fed off the pressure as the defending champions in a rancorous environment to capture the coveted championship trophy that was first awarded in 1964.

“We were not the home team at all,” Diep stressed. “But the boys were like, yeah, we’re going to do this and they did.”

The Miners were destined to repeat after a thrilling 19-16 come-from-behind verdict against the Native Sons of the Can/Am Lacrosse League in the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader to go 5-1.

“The key moment in this tournament was that Native Sons’ game being down 11-5. When those boys came back and won that game they knew that this tournament was theirs,” Diep said of the nine-goal explosion, all at even strength, during a 9:39-minute scoring spree to lead 14-11 after two periods. “Essentially that game was our tournament. We lose that game we’re either out of the tournament or we fall in to a tiebreaker (to determine the two finalists) and you don’t want to put a tiebreaker situation into anybody else’s hands.”

The Miners trailed 6-4 after 20 minutes and it was 8-4 when the Miners scored at 2:49 of the second.

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Teetering on the brink at 11-5, the first of three goals by pickup Patrick O’Meara cued the comeback at 10:21. Richard Lachlan with a pair and singles by Cornfield, Keegan Bal, Jarrett Toll and Tom Buckley pushed the Miners ahead to stay for good.

“We were down 11-5 and it was kind of one of those points we needed to take it to the next level and we took off as a team collectively. We started scoring and scoring and scoring and after that we never looked back,” Cornfield said of the barnburner. “We went on to beat St. Regis (12-7) the next night and then beat Kahnawake (11-8) the next night and then won the final.

“I would definitely say maybe the tournament wasn’t won in that 10 minutes of that game but definitely it was our TSN turning point of the tournament for sure.”

The final featured two teams with only one loss apiece – the Miners fell 12-9 to the Rivermen on Wednesday and the Six Nations team dropped a 15-7 decision to Kahnawake (5-4) on Friday – and in the rematch the Miners capitalized three times on the power play for their first three goals in the opening period to lead 4-2.

The Rivermen were 0-for-2 with the man advantage in the final and were whistled for seven minors.

Shots were 36-26 for the Miners and in net was pickup Ryan Avery.

“When you come out to a national tournament with teams with all that skilled talent you don’t want to give those opportunities away and making sure everybody was disciplined was key,” Diep said. “We have such a great group of individuals. They’re unselfish. They would take the hacks, high sticks, the beatings and the missed calls and they would just brush it off and only worry about the task at hand.”

Bal, the team’s top gun, pumped in four goals in the first and his 30th of the tournament and 62nd point in nine games made it 7-5 with 1:37 to play.

Lachlan’s tournament-high 34th goal for his 51st point was the only score in the middle frame.

Tyler Melnyk, another pickup for nationals, struck in the third at 14:43 to break a 5-5 tie.

Sean Reid collected three assists and Melynk and Darren Kinnear had a pair of helpers.

“We were composed on the bench. When we got up 4-1 we weren’t high on ourselves, like now we can shut it down,” Diep said of the defensive battle. “Ryan Avery was a stud back there, our defence held their own and with the hostile crowd we just ignored all the small distractions that was totally against us there and what can you say about Keegan Bal? It was a combination of everything and again it took all 26 guys to win that thing.”

Cornfield, 34, who was sidelined for the big game with an injury, watched the final unfold while chewing his fingertips to the bone.

“There were games where our offence won for our defence, there were games that our defence won for our offence and that definitely was one of the games our defence won for our offence for sure,” Cornfield said.

Overall, the Miners were too good to be true as back-to-back Presidents’ Cup champions.

“It was our hard work, dedication and our whole team bought into the system that we were playing on the defensive end and the offensive end but more importantly our big time players stepped up when they needed to step up which was a huge asset to our team,” Cornfield said. “We have guys on our team that can’t be rivalled. When they step up their game they play the way they can play and take over games and do what they need to do to win.”

The St. Albert Miners dug deep despite a near perfect record for a return trip to nationals

With the injuries we had and the retirement of (all-star netminder) Dave Marrese it sure made it tougher to get there this year even with our record,” said head coach Vay Diep. “It’s such a great group of guys.”

Last year the host team at nationals in Leduc rattled off 25 consecutive victories to finish 25-0-1 as the first Presidents’ Cup champions from Alberta since the Sherwood Park Outlaws in 2007.

The Miners continued their winning ways with 22 in a row this season before losing game two in the best-of-five final to the Rockyview Knights of Airdrie and the 11-6 result Aug. 12 at Strathcona Olympiette Centre ended the successful stretch of 47 straight.

The first of 47 wins was the second game of the 2016 regular season after the Miners and Knights battled to a 7-7 draw on April 30 in St. Albert.

The Knights also handed the Miners their last loss before the run of greatness and the 11-6 decision at Max Bell Centre in game four of the 2015 final clinched the provincial championship.

“That winning streak was really not something that we would talk about. It’s something you would write or somebody else would talk about,” Diep said. “At the end of the day our goal is to win a national championship. We want to be lifting that trophy and it doesn’t matter what our record is to get us there.”

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The Miners will run the floor at nationals for the third time in four years and the fifth since 2010.

Last year the Miners defeated the Kahnawake Mohawks of the Quebec Senior League 12-7 in the final to finish 5-0 in the eight-team tournament.

Three years ago, the Miners knocked off Kahnawake 7-5 for bronze to complete an overall 27-3 record and all three losses were at nationals in Coquitlam, B.C.

“Last year hosting it and having that pressure was great experience but even going as far back as the Presidents’ Cup experiences in 2010, 2011 and 2014 there is still a good core amount of guys that have been to those three prior Presidents’ Cups and those experiences are going to be huge,” Diep said.

The Miners also picked up Tyler Melnyk of the Calgary Mountaineers to give an already potent offence a bigger boost as well as a pair of Knights with previous stints in the National Lacrosse League: netminder Ryan Avery and Patrick O’Meara, a big body in the back end.

“We’ve got the right roster to go down there and try and win another one,” Diep said.

The last repeat winner was the St. Regis Braves of the Three Nations Senior Lacrosse League in 2011-12.

“We’re not going in with the mindset we want to repeat but we’re looking at it as one game at a time, play our game and play within our systems. You play everybody once and at the end of the day it’s one versus two on Sunday. You’ve got to go a full 60 minutes. You can’t look ahead, you’ve got to pile up your wins here and there,” Diep said. “It’s going to be a tough tournament. To win it all you’ve got to play nine games in eight days and Thursday is our two games in one day.”

At Iroquois Lacrosse Arena, the Miners play the host Six Nations Slash on Sunday, Saskatoon Brewers on Monday, Nova Scotia Privateers on Tuesday, Six Nations Rivermen of Ontario on Wednesday, Ladner Pioneers of the West Coast Senior Lacrosse Association and the Native Sons of the Can/Am Lacrosse league on Thursday, St. Regis on Friday and Kahnawake on Saturday.

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The medal finals for bronze and gold are Sunday, Sept. 3.

“I sat down with (assistant coach) Todd Lorenz and we went through the whole schedule. We played it out what lineups we’ve got to go with. We’ve got to manage the roster carefully to make sure that everybody is healthy at the end stretch of that schedule,” Diep said.

Visit www.pointstreaksites.com/view/presidentscup/home for the tournament schedule and results.

Live updates will be also posted at @StAlbertMiners.

The Miners wrapped up their fourth consecutive provincial final and seventh in eight years with victories of 9-5 Friday and 13-7 Saturday in Calgary after the Knights evened the series at one win apiece the weekend before by outscoring the Miners 6-1 in the third period.

The series opener was 10-5 Miners.

“We regrouped after game two. We had a really good talk and our good old captain, Jordan Cornfield, got the boys really up together to get ready for games three and four to close the series out,” Diep said. “No disrespect to our opponent but at the end of the day when you look at it the game two loss was all on us. We made mistakes that we rarely make. We didn’t stay focused for a full 60 minutes and the end result was we beat ourselves.”

Game three was scoreless before Keegan Bal and Ryan Dilks potted goals 48 seconds apart halfway through the opening period.

Graedon Cornfield with two and one by Ryan Davis made it 5-1 in the second before the Knights replied before the period ended.

Darren Kinnear tallied twice and assisted on goals by Bal and Ethan Forgrave in the third for five points on the night in support of netminder Matt Hiebert.

The scoring stats from game four were not available at press time.

“You knew they were all going to be tough games. The Knights are a good team and well rounded as well,” Diep said of the Knights, 17-8 overall and three losses to the Miners in league play were 14-8, 12-5 and 14-7.

“The first period in game three we got the road travel legs this time. It was only 2-1 and if someone says that was a feeling out period it was defined just like that and once we got relaxed we opened it up in the second period.

“And good for Matty Hiebert too. He’s been waiting a long time to get a starting role and he’s finally got it and he’s shown us that he was capable of closing out a fairly tight game in game three.

“In game four it was pretty much all on the table; do we want to drive back and play game five (Sunday at the Strathcona Olympiette Centre) or do we finish it off here now.”

As good as the Miners are, the best of the best is Bal, last year’s MVP at nationals with a tournament-high 24 assists and 36 points.

This year the second-year Miner tore it up with 49 goals and 74 assists in 16 games as the repeat winner of the Harris Toth Award as the league’s top scorer.

The Coquitlam, B.C. product also lead all scorers in the 2016 regular season with 70 points, including 26 goals in 13 games.

After four playoff games, Bal had compiled 15 goals and 31 points.

“Gretzky had Kurri and Keegan has got Richard Lachlan (league-high 62 goals in 14 games and 90 points for second overall in scoring) and then on the other side of the floor you’ve got the Cornfields and Kinnear,” Diep said. “Keegan leads by example. He sees the floor. He is a pure goal sniper. You don’t leave Keegan alone with the ball.”

MINERS SCOOP: The Miners’ annual golf tournament is Sept. 23 at the Cardiff Golf & Country Club. Shotgun start is 12:30 p.m.

Registration is $130 per person and the deadline to enter is Sept. 15.

Visit www.rockymountainlax.com to register.

For more information, contact Jordan Cornfield at 587-988-0872.

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