Badgers’ men’s lacrosse returned home to Alumni Field on Thursday, Oct. 26th for a playoff matchup against the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks.
Thursday marked the beginning of the first round of the Baggataway Cup, the national championship of the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA).
The Golden Hawks finished the regular season with a solid 6-4 record, largely off the strength of the second stingiest defence in the CUFLA, allowing only 45 goals over 10 games. Their performance was good for fourth in the CUFLA Western Conference, two points and one slot behind Brock, who finished with seven wins and three losses.
However, their closeness in the standings doesn’t really tell the tale of the tape for these two teams. In their last matchup on Oct. 15th, the Badgers dismantled the Golden Hawks, scoring the first nine goals of the match en route to a 10-3 crushing.
In that win over Laurier, Brock managed to sling three by the Golden Hawks keeper early on and ran away with the lead, only allowing Laurier on the board in the fourth quarter.
This time around, the Badgers seemed to run into some of that patented Laurier stinginess.
For almost the entire first, neither Badgers nor Golden Hawks could find any scoring. Eventually, with just under five remaining, Mitchell Zulian got the scoring started with a powerplay marker.
After the first goal, the floodgates were open.
Brock got the second goal of the night a minute-and-a-half into the second quarter with James Gowland’s first of the night, but Aiden Macdonald of Laurier responded soon after, cutting the lead to one.
Despite surrendering a goal, the Badgers seemed to find their groove. With nine remaining in the half, Gowland scored another. Avery Steinbach-Parker scored two minutes after that, and the Badgers struck again another two minutes later with a Jaden Patterson goal. Patterson added his second of the night with three remaining in the half.
The Badgers exited the first half, leading by a considerable 6-1 margin.
The second half was a much more low-scoring affair than the first.
Blair Pachereva got his first barely over a minute into quarter three, but that would stand as the lone goal of the half for much of that quarter.
Laurier’s Ryan Lumley got Laurier’s second of the night with three left in the third quarter, but Brock’s Noah Simonelli would stretch the lead back to six only two minutes later.
Laurier scored their third goal early in the fourth quarter, but by then, with Brock leading 8-2, it was far too late. That would stand as the last goal of the match, giving the Badgers a convincing 8-3 first-round playoff victory.
With this win, the Badgers move on to play in the Baggataway Cup tournament, running from Nov. 3 to Nov. 5. For more information about their opponents and schedule, please visit gobadgers.ca.