NLL Insider

The very word “excelsior” is a Latin term meaning high, elevated or lofty. And now that you’ve been schooled on the term, it’s time to notice just how thoroughly this lacrosse team from Brampton, Ontario, is living up to its namesake. Winners of six straight, the defending Mann Cup champs have put everyone in Major Series Lacrosse on notice. Included in those six victories is Sunday’s big 9-7 win over rival Peterborough, and that puts the Excelsiors all alone in first place with 24 points (12-5 record) as we head into the final week of the regular season. How are they doing it?

Let us count the ways, but where do we start? Offense or defense? From the back end, a defense that’s held opponents to single digits in 6 straight games kinda sparkles on the stat sheet, so let’s start there. Primary netminder Anthony Cosmo has been nothing short of brilliant, notching the ‘W’ in 4 of the 6 Brampton wins. And, in each of those, Cosmo’s held foes to 4, 7, 5 and 2 — yes, 2 — goals. So it’s no real surprise that Cosmo leads the circuit with a 5.75 goals-against average in his 11 games.

But you know goalies are the kinda guys who never take the credit for themselves. They’ll dish the glory to the boys in front of them and it’s kinda hard not to when you’re Cosmo and have guys like Paul Dawson, Scott Carnegie, Patrick Merrill, Mike Kirk and Sean Holmes throwin’ the lumber in front of you. And even when Cosmo’s not in cage, Brampton’s got a tidy backup goalie in Pat Campbell, who gets credit for the other 2 wins in the 6-game win streak by holding opponents to 7 and 6 goals.

Can’t forget the offense, though. And sure, you’ve got guys like Josh Sanderson (78 points, 27-51), Colin Doyle (59, 17-42), Dan Teat (46, 21-25) and Aaron Wilson (40, 15-25) crashing the cage. But you’ve also got Shawn Williams in your lineup now and is it a coincidence that Brampton’s won all 6 games since the trade in late June? Not when you consider he’s got 29 points (11-18) in those 6 games. And that included a 5-2 performance on July 9 in his first game against Brooklin, the team that traded him away.

Of course, we’ve still got a full week of action left before playoff positions are set and as good as it looks for Brampton right now, the team still has to watch its back. Peterborough and Six Nations each have 22 points (11-5 records) and can easily surpass the Excelsiors before it’s all said and done. Especially when you consider that Brampton’s got just one game left, and that’s Thursday’s home game against the Lakers. Peterborough wraps up at Barrie on Friday, and Six Nations is at Kitchener-Waterloo tonight before wrapping up at home against Brooklin on Saturday.

As exciting as this race is, we still have that race in the cellar. We know Brampton, Peterborough, Six Nations, St. Regis and K-W will be in the playoffs, but what’s going on with Barrie and Brooklin? Both squads have just 6 points and only one is going to the postseason. Wednesday night is a big night for both as they square off against each other in Brooklin. The Redmen have one more game after that, while Barrie has two so that final playoff spot might not be determined until after Barrie wraps up its schedule with a home game Sunday against St. Regis.

Loose balls: Even with that reconstructed knee, it looks like John Grant Jr. is in fine shape. In his 2 games back with Peterborough, Junior’s got 10 points with a 3-2 performance against St. Regis and a 2-3 night against Brampton … Six Nations couldn’t have been happy with that surprising loss to Brooklin on Wednesday, but the Chiefs responded with wins over Barrie and St. Regis. Cody Jamieson was in beast mode against St. Regis, notching 4 goals and 6 assists in the 15-14 win. Even Kim Squire (remember him?) got into the act in that game for SN, posting 3-3 … Speaking of Jamieson (79 points), he’s waging quite the battle with Josh Sanderson (78) for the league scoring title. And don’t count out Williams (76), either … Will the real St. Regis Indians team please stand up? They’ve played with and beaten the best, but they’ve also lost games they probably shouldn’t. The Standard Freeholder asks if the Indians can put it together in time for the playoffs.

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