Clarington, Halton Hills in Meredith Cup final

Clarington Shamrox and Halton Hills Bulldogs will meet in the final game of the third annual Meredith Cup lacrosse tournament this afternoon in Cornwall.

Halton Hills, its berth in the Ontario Junior C Lacrosse League championship game already assured, emerged from the four-team round-robin as the only undefeated team after defeating Clarington 8-5 Saturday afternoon, stretching a post-season winning streak to 11 games.

Clarington finished 1-1-1, as did the host Cornwall Celtics after they defeated the Hamilton Bengals 12-8 in Saturday night’s final round-robin game. The Celtics and Clarington tied 9-9 in the tournament opener but the three-time defending champion Shamrox advanced on the basis of goal differential — Clarington was plus-six in its other two games, Cornwall minus-two.

Today’s game will be played at 2 o’clock at the Benson Centre.

Cornwall, the East division champion, was in a dogfight with winless Hamilton through two periods, leading just 6-5. It was 7-7 midway through the third period when the Celtics began to pour it on, with four goals in the next two and a half minutes. It was enough to clinch the win but insufficient to overcome Clarington’s advantage in goal differential.

Ryan Dewar and Brandon Perras had three goals each for Cornwall while Conner Thompson scored twice. Dewar and Quin MacDonnell each collected three assists. Dan Foote had four goals and Daniel Williams three to lead Hamilton, the West division finalist, which surpassed by a goal its output in its previous two games at the tournament combined.

With five goals in the third period, Halton Hills broke open a one-goal game in the preliminary round’s penultimate contest. Clarington led 5-4 when goals by Mike Nicolucci and Adam Charalambides two minutes apart early in the third put the Bulldogs into the lead for good.

The Bulldogs, the West division champions who fashioned the best record in the league, 14-1-1, during the regular year, got two goals apiece from Kurtis Oldham, Charalambides and Kyle Moore. Moore also had five assists.

Keenan Cook and Taylor Meraw scored twice each for Clarington, while Garrett Williams, with three goals and 10 points in his two previous tournament games, was held to just one assist.

In Saturday’s opening game, Clarington scored two goals in the first 58 seconds of the game and five unanswered goals in the first period and they coasted to a 14-5 win over Hamilton in a game that featured 10 major penalties — eight of them in the second period.

Williams had two goals and four assists to lead the Shamrox, while Courtland Araujo scored three times and Andy Shure and Cook each had two goals among four points.

Williams had two goals for Hamilton while Cree Blakely and Foote each had a goal and two assists.