Oct 17, 2022... Welland - The Niagara College Knights finished their regular season with two tough matches against the first and second place teams in the West division with Humber and Conestoga.
Humber, 10-0 and ranked first in the CCAA national rankings, obliterated the Knights on the scoresheet Wednesday night in an unfortunate 11-0 loss.
"We were simply overwhelmed the first 15 minutes of the game," said head coach Frank DeChellis. "After that we pressed to score, leaving ourselves a bit open, but it was important to me that the guys work to get the ball in their end, and we did. I guess we could have sat back and kept the score lower, but that's not the kind of learning the group needs right now. We gave a lot of our young guys a lot of minutes against the very experienced defending national champions."
First-year keeper Vinson Notarianni faced 19 shots on goal.
"Personally, I felt Vinny did a great job in goal. He has been solid for us and made a lot of high level plays in what turned out to be a very, very busy night for him. He challenged on crosses, handled 1v1 situations very well and his distribution was the best it has been all year."
Things didn't get much for the Knights on saturday when they took on the Conestoga Condors in Kitchener. The Condors, ranked 10th nationally, defeated the Knights back on Sept 9th at the blue and white's home opener 1-0.
Saturday's match saw the Condors run to a 5-0 lead before first-year forward Isaac DeWaard netted his third of the season in the final minutes of play to spoil the Condors shutout.
Despite the run of bad luck in their final regular season games, the Knights will in fact head to a playoff cross-over game at St. Lawrence College Saturday. The OCAA announced the Sheridan Bruins had forfeited seven games due to an ineligible player that rocked the OCAA West standings. The Bruins, who were atop the OCAA standings with Humber and Conestoga, dropped to 1-9 due to the forfeited games. The Knights finished the season with a 3-7 record after their two losses to the Bruins were overturned and find themselves in a playoff position as the 6th place West Division team. Niagara will now travel to take on the St. Lawrence Surge (6-2-2). Niagara will have to get past the Surge to advance to the OCAA Championships Oct 26-29th at Humber College.
