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The West was not won again in Minto Cup

Defending Canadian junior A lacrosse champions Six Nations Arrows beats Coquitlam in six games following 9-4 win on Saturday.
Coquitlam jr A
Coquitlam Adanacs lost Game 6 of the Minto Cup final 9-4 to defending junior A champion Six Nations Arrows on Saturday.

The West came back empty handed from yet another Minto Cup.

The Coquitlam Adanacs lost the 2015 Canadian junior A lacrosse final 9-4 to the defending champion Six Nations following a second consecutive six-game series loss to the Arrows last Saturday.

After winning the opening game and then narrowly surrendering Game 2 in overtime to the Arrows, Coquitlam struggled big time in the offensive zone, failing to tally more than five goals in any of the remaining four championship games, including a come-from-behind 5-4 squeaker in Game 4 on Aug. 26 at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena.

In that game, Matt Symes, Andy Campbell and Jean-Luc Chetner all scored in three-minute span late in the final period to knot the series at 2-2.

But Game 5 went all Six Nation’s way, with the Arrows winning 8-2.

In the final four games at the Minto, the A’s managed just 16 goals, a far cry from the 20-1-0 league champions that led the league with 290 counters this season.

Christian Del Bianco could not be faulted for his numbers in the six-game series, sporting a healthy .846 save percentage, which included 93 saves in the final two games of the championship final.

Chris Cloutier, who scored 10 times in Coquitlam’s three-game sweep of Okotoks in the regional final, managed just four against Six Nations to lead the west with 15 total points.

Austin Staats and Minto Cup MVP Brendan Bomberry led all scorers with 19 and 17 points, respectively.

With the defeat, the span of time from when a team from the West Coast last won the coveted Minto Cup back crept closer to 40 years.

The famed 1977 Burnaby Cablevision was the last team from the west to bring the cup home from Ontario following a six-game series win over the Whitby CBC Builders.

In fact, in the last 45 years, just 13 winners from B.C. have ever sipped from Lord Minto’s silver mug.