Friday, August 1, 2014

Excelsiors beat Lakers 11-8 in final game of regular season

The Brampton Excelsiors may be out of the Major Series Lacrosse playoffs, but they finished their season strong by downing the Peterborough Lakers 11-8 at Memorial Arena in Brampton Thursday night. The Excelsiors scored seven straight goals to open the second period and three straight off the top of the third, enough to give them the win over a Peterborough team that had already clinched second place. Brady Heseltine led all scorers with 2 goals and 2 assists for Brampton. Shane Scott also had a pair of goals. For Peterborough, Matt Crough and Andrew Suitor scored twice each.

The Lakers led 2-1 after the first period but found themselves trailing 8-2 after Brampton's run. Peterborough got four goals back before the end of the period, including three in 26 seconds from 18:19 to 18:45. The Excels turned the momentum back in their favour, though, with the three-goal run that gave them an 11-6 lead and held on from there.

Peterborough finishes the season at 10-8, tied with Kitchener-Waterloo for second, but gets the higher seeding and home floor advantage in the first round based on a better goals for and against ratio in the two games the Lakers and Kodiaks split during the season. Brampton finishes 5-13 and alone in sixth place.