The Boys with Balls had put together some solid streaks of twos. Two straight wins; two straight games with the goals for tally carrying a ‘7’ in it; two straight games with a player scoring 5 goals; two straight games with leading scorer Tim Correia recording at least three goals; two straight games holding their opponents to only three goals.
Then along came a matchup against the lowly Generals. The same team (at least on paper) that they’d defeated 17-3 two weeks earlier. It should have been a cake walk victory and smooth sailing into locking up fifth place in the SBHL Tuesday Night standings. But instead, the unforeseen happened. The Generals (for the record, using at least one ringer, and a substitute goalie) shocked the hockey world by pulling off a 3-1 upset; their first victory of the season.
“Nobody likes being somebody else’s first,” says captain Josh Bailie. “We just kinda lay down and took it from them tonight.”
Struggling to get anything going offensively, the BWB showed cracks in their defence, and the Generals pounced on their opportunities.
“We could have played stronger in our own zone tonight,” said Matt Di Nicolantonio. “It was just an embarassing effort from the entire team in the back end.”
A silver lining is that since losing 7-0 on June 29, they’ve allowed just three goals in each of their last three games.
James Bertola scored the only goal, his fourth of the season. But it very easily could have been more for the hulking winger.
“He ROBBED me on at least two chances,” the enigmatic forward said. “I had about 10 shots on net tonight, and easily could have had three or four goals.”
So now the BWB will crawl into the playoffs for a first-round matchup against the Misty C Ballers, a team that defeated them 5-3 earlier in the season.
“It’s going to be a tough test for sure,” says Bailie. “It’s going to be a matter of who wants it more, and in this case, who has the better balls.”
In a strange twist of fate, this game matches the only two teams in the league who have not drawn a tie. That’s only fitting because ties are out the window now. It’s win-or-go-home.
“We’re into cliché territory now,” says Di Nicolantonio. “We could sit here for an hour and spew out a hundred of them, but we’ll just have to show up tomorrow night and play like we know we can. If we do that, we’re confident we can win.”
Boys With Balls v. Misty C Ballers. Tuesday night at Mississauga Valley Arena at 9:00 p.m.
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