The Barrie Lakeshores swept their Major Series Lacrosse regular-season series with the Brampton Excelsiors.  

But, as the saying goes, that and a buck and a half will get you a cup of coffee, as the Lakeshores lost the first two games of their semifinal series with the Brampton Excelsiors over the Simcoe Day long weekend.

After a two-week layoff due to a bye earned by their second-place finish in the regular-season standings, the Lakeshores showed some ‘rink rust’ in a 7-6 Game 1 loss to the Excelsiors Friday night at the Barrie Molson Centre.

Despite outshooting Brampton 55-40 and having a two-goal third period lead, the Lakeshores gave up the winning goal with 32.5 seconds left in the third giving the Excelsiors a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.  

Going 0-7 with the man advantage didn’t help the Lakeshores, either.

Chad Culp led the Lakeshores’ attack with two goals, two assists. Luke Wiles added a goal and a pair of helpers. Sean Greenhalgh, Brian Holman and Bryan Kazarian also scored for Barrie.

The Lakeshores trailed 2-1 after one period and 4-2 after two, but seemed to come to life with four straight goals to start the third. That is when the Excelsiors picked themselves off the BMC turf, dusted themselves off, and scored the next three goals for the come-from-behind win

Dan Teat and Jeff Shatler scored a pair each for Brampton, with Mike Kirk, Aaron Wilson and Blaine Manning netting singles.

Game two Sunday night didn’t go much better for Barrie.

Ahead by two goals midway through the second, the Excelsiors scored four straight to win 7-5 and go up 2-0 in the best-of-seven series.

Lakeshores Head Coach Lindsay Sanderson didn’t hide his disappointment after Sunday’s game.

“We wanted to finish up in the top two so we could get that home floor advantage and we’ve pissed that away,” he said, adding “Both game were both winnable by us, we had leads in both games which we gave up.”

Mark Steenhuis led the way for Barrie with a hat trick and an assist. Luke Wiles and Nathan Sanderson also scored for the Lakeshores who got off to fast start but fizzled.

 “We scored four goals in the first period and we get one in the last 40 minutes,” said a dissatisfied but not disheartened Sanderson. “You’re not going to win anything with that output.”

Teat scored a pair for Brampton, with Shatler, Josh Sanderson, Pat McCready, Mike Hominuck and Brodie Merrill adding singles.

The power play once again was a weak spot for the Lakeshores who went 1-7 in Game two with the man advantage and are now 1-14 on the power play for the series. They actually ran a goal deficit in game two being outscored 2-1 by Brampton with the Excelsiors occupying the penalty box.

Sanderson shook his head in his post-game interview when describing his team’s power-play performance saying simply, “we lost our man on a couple and it ended up in our net.”

The coach, looking for a silver lining to a dark playoff cloud summed up the weekend saying “we’ve lost both games but we have been right in them, right to the last second. We’ll build on that.”

Game three goes Wednesday night in Brampton at the Powerade Centre.