The wait that seemed interminable to the Brock Badgers is finally over.
Aidan Buis scored 57 seconds into sudden-victory overtime to give the Badgers their first Baggataway Cup championship in 12 years with a 10-9 win over the Guelph Gryphons.
A dozen years may not seem like a particularly long drought to most Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association teams. Brock, though, had never gone more than two seasons without winning the Baggataway Cup from the time the championship was initiated in 1985 through the last time they had won before this year, in 2009. In total, Brock has now won 19 of the 36 Baggataway Cups that have been played.
Brock took the first and only three-goal lead of the gold medal game with a run of 3 goals in an eight-minute stretch of the second quarter and they held that 7-4 lead through halftime and the first five minutes of the third.
Guelph scored the only two goals of the third quarter to pull back within one. Both goalies—Simon Bellamy for Brock and Cam McLeod for Guelph—were excellent throughout the game, and for a nearly 10-minute run of game play after the Gryphons final goal of the third quarter they were perfect, with neither team able to find the back of the net from 16:23 of the third till 6:15 of the fourth quarter.
Then Michael Berger got even hotter than he had already been. Berger, who had scored 7 goals in Guelph's quarterfinal and semifinal wins and already had 2 in the final, added tying and go-ahead goals less than six minutes apart on a pair of impressive drives to the net.
Buis had a very different Baggataway Cup experience. He had a single assist in Brock's quarterfinal win and didn't get on the score sheet at all in the semis. He seems to save his best for games against Guelph, though. Half of Buis' 8 regular-season goals this fall came against the Gryphons. He was at it again in the final, scoring his second of the game to tie things up with exactly five minutes remaining in regulation time.
Berger responded two minutes later, though, connecting for his fifth of the game to put Guelph in position to win as the game arrived at stop time for the final three minutes of play.
The Badgers turned to an unlikely source for the tying goal. Jeff Wittig is a forward in professional box lacrosse, but he is a long pole defender for Brock and didn't score a goal in five regular season games. He stepped up offensively in the Baggataway Cup, heading over centre with his pole to score once against Bishop's in the semis and once late in the first quarter of the final.
With time ticking away on the Badgers' championship hopes, though, Wittig was handed a short stick and sent out to the attacking end of the field. He accepted a pass in the high slot and let rip a sidearm shot that eluded the goalie and eventually would prove to be the marker that forced overtime.
Mitch Gustavsen was the West Division faceoff All Canadian in the regular season and would be named to the same role on the All Baggataway Cup team after the game. To start overtime, the Badgers leaned on him to get them possession and he did it, winning the opening faceoff to send Brock to the attack first in the extra frame. Guelph would never get the ball.
Nathan Braniff took a shot running across the top of the offensive set 49 seconds into OT. Cam McLeod made an excellent save on the low shot but the rebound caromed directly back to Braniff, who flipped it immediately to Buis. He eluded a pair of defenders and, just before a third could reach him on a slide, fired a shot that grazed past McLeod's hip and hit the mesh for the championship-winning goal.
That gave Buis a hat trick, which was matched by Josh Res to lead Brock in scoring in the game. Berger had 5 goals and an assist to lead Guelph while Mitch Ogilvie added 2 goals and an assist for the Gryphons.
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