Scotland Advances to Gold Medal Game Second Year in a Row

The Scottish Thistles are headed back to the championship game at the IIJL World Junior Lacrosse Championship. They made the gold medal match for the second straight year after beating Canada for the second straight day while scoring 16 goals for the second straight time at the Slush Puppie Centre in Kingston, Ontario Thursday night. 

The Thistles will meet the United States in the gold medal game. The USA ran away with a 28-6 win over Australia in the other Semi-Final.

The Scots had beaten Canada 16-15 the day before the semifinal matchup. While that final game of the Round-Robin on Wednesday didn't mean anything to the standings, which were already locked into place before its opening face-off, it was obvious that winning it meant a great deal to both teams.

[PHOTO: A focused Jaret Jawor backstops Scotland to Gold Medal Game.]

They battled tooth and nail, and animosity between the clubs built throughout the game. That animosity carried over into the semi and grew. 

The start of the Semi-Final game could not have been much more different to the opening minutes of Wednesday's game. While Canada had appeared to sleepwalk through the start of the round robin match – falling behind 7-0 in the first four and a half minutes – an energized Canadian side got the first 2 goals of the semifinal within two minutes of play. 

Then, things started to look eerily similar to a day earlier. For the second straight game, forward Mason Myers took a major penalty for roughing before the game was six minutes old. Scotland scored a pair of goals on the power play, which pushed them into a 3-2 lead and sparked an 8-1 run through the middle of the second quarter. 

[PHOTO: Canada's Mason Myers #6 was ejected from the game.]

While Canada had rebounded to tie the previous game and almost forced overtime in the final couple of minutes, there would be no grand comeback in the semifinal. Jaret Jawor, named the Thistles' player of the game, was sharp in net to keep Canada at bay, and Scotland just kept finding ways to add to their scoring total. 

Austin Maybee had another huge game for Scotland, putting up 3 Goals, which gives him 16 Goals in total for the tournament. Maybee branched out from his sniping ways, as well, drawing defensive pressure then dishing for lovely assists on 2 Goals by Braydan Stearns and 1 Goal by Paul Ruskoski. The Thistles boasted a nicely balanced attack, with six players scoring multiple goals, including speedy transition player Mitch Carick, who scored twice and added a pair of assists. 

One of Maybee's goals came on a penalty shot. He is four for four on penalty shot's in the tournament. Scotland has been awarded so many penalty shots because Canada has made a habit of taking penalties when they are already two players down. Maybee has been unstoppable at making the Canadians pay for their lack of discipline, putting home precision shots at the end of a slow, slow approach to the net on his penalty shots. 

[PHOTO: Players of the Game - Canada Kieryn Noppen (left) and Scotland Jaret Jawor (right).]

Myers was ejected from the game again after taking multiple major penalties for the second straight time. 

Neely, who leads the tournament with 16 Assists, was playing the sniper role for Canada, scoring 4 Goals to go along with 2 helpers. Kieryn Noppen was named Canada's player of the game after scoring a pair of goals and adding an assist while delivering a hard-working effort that included tenacious and effective back-checking throughout the game.

The bronze medal game between Canada and Australia will be played at 5:00 PM ET, followed by the Gold Medal Game at 8:00 PM ET. Both games can be watched live on the IIJL World Juniors YouTube channel.