Saturday afternoon the Peterborough Timbermen unexpectedly had their season cut short with a 12-7 quarterfinal loss to the Whitby Steelhawks in Arena Lacrosse League playoff action.
Based on the regular season, it was the Timbermen’s game to lose as they finished in second place while the Steelhawks toiled at the bottom of the standings all year.
But Whitby was 4-2 in their last six games; they came together just in time to defend their 2018 championship. Rookie of the year Austin Murphy came back and put up 15 goals and 16 assists in five games. JP Kealey was returned from the New England Black Wolves and scored nine points in the one game he played. Veteran defenseman Mark Farthing returned for the playoffs from a near-season long hand injury.
Meanwhile, the Timbermen lost a big part of their transition game when Colton Armstrong was called up to the Rochester Knighthawks.
Those are the ups and downs of being a developmental league as players move in and out of the lineup.
Regardless of who was or wasn’t in the lineup for each team, the Timbermen expected more of themselves in the playoffs. All they needed was three more wins. It seemed more than manageable.
“Sometimes you don’t get the breaks you want,” said assistant coach Ray Dance. “It was the little things like us clinching our sticks too tight at the start; we weren’t getting on the floor fast enough on defense for one quarter and the little things add up to the big result and we didn’t get the result we wanted because of those little things we couldn’t establish today.”
The Timbermen struggled out of the gate, falling behind 4-1 by halftime. Goaltender Nick Damude kept them in it – allowing only four goals in the first half became standard for him throughout the season – but the scoring support wasn’t there for him as his counterpart in Whitby’s net, Lukas Coote, equaled him save for save.
Cody McMahon scored the only goal of the first quarter to give Whitby a 1-0 lead. They increased that to 3-0 after Jeff Fernandes and Kealey scored 20 seconds apart in the second. Fernandes got alone in front of Damude to finish Cory Upshaw’s transition break and Kealey grabbed a rebound and threw a low behind-the-back shot at the net without even looking.
Timbermen captain Mark Vradenburg finally got Peterborough on the board with 3:31 remaining in the half as he snuck a goal through Coote’s pads.
Murphy put Whitby up 4-1 after he grabbed a rebound and dodged around two defenders before a crease dive with an impressive hang time.
Vradenburg said the Timbermen tried to stay as calm as possible during halftime.
“We had no issues in terms of playing even keel,” he said. “We had everyone calm down and relax a bit because I felt like we were all squeezing our sticks a little bit in the beginning and dropping easy passes from top to bottom. We just kinda calmed down a little bit, said we’re all right and assured ourselves we were good to go.”
Whatever was said in the dressing room sparked the team as they scored five straight goals in the third quarter to suddenly lead 6-4.
Vradenburg scored one of his patented dive goals 26 seconds in. Cameron Simpson wired a sidearm shot at 2:04. Simpson then tied the game at four on with a power play goal. Zack Thompson finished off Kroy Arnold’s pass as the Timbermen found themselves on a three-on-one break. Fred Hartley finished off the streak by skipping over the crease to corral the ball in.
Fernandes scored the lone Steelhawks goal of the frame late to close the gap to 6-5.
But the Timbermen couldn’t sustain the momentum in the fourth and, for lack of a better word, they collapsed. Vradenburg capped his day with a hat trick goal early, but the Steelhawks roared back with seven straight goals.
“It’s not on anybody individually but it’s on everybody as a collective,” Vradenburg said. “I guess (we lost our) ability to push through and we had couple of lapses on transition and defense, but our offense had to step up and keep pushing. Giving up a lead at that time, it killed our momentum.”
Austin Murphy got the run started with the tying goal with 9:42 remaining. Fernandes gave Whitby back the lead 30 seconds later. Murphy then scored a natural hat trick in a span of 43 seconds. Cody McMahon scored a power play goal with 4:28 left. JP Kealey added a late goal.
“They were last place in the standings but they’re a good club,” Dance said. “They’re the defending champions and they got a couple key pieces back which turned their offense right around. They’re a lot different team than what we played during the season.”
