The Thompson Okanagan Senior Lacrosse League (TOSLL) will come down to one final game.
The Armstrong Shamrocks evened up the best-of-three finals for the Rowcliffe Cup on Tuesday night, in front of a raucous home crowd, defeating the 琉璃神社 Raiders, 6-5.
Opening the scoring for the Shamrocks was forward Jarrett Medhurst, but it was quickly followed by Raiders stud Andrew Garant putting home his first of the night.
After an Armstrong power-play marker, Garant once more evened the game to 2-2 heading into the break.
The second period was close throughout, with both teams scoring twice. Garant scored his hat-trick, which was quickly followed by teammate Cody Teichroeb on the man-advantage. Armstrong's Logan Strohm and Tyson Fair quickly responded, as the game came into the final intermission knotted at four.
Josh Dumont put the Shamrocks up with another power-play goal, before Garant scored his fourth of the night to tie things up at five.
With about five minutes remaining in regulation time, DuMont took a pass from Kyle Versteeg and rushed the floor, driving to the net and delivering his second goal of the game, in what would result in the game winning goal.
The 6-5 victory was buoyed by a stellar goaltending performance from Conner Senn, who faced 46 Raiders shots.
"There鈥檚 a reason why this team is the anchor franchise for the league and has been since the league restarted 30 years ago in 1994 as we play with heart,鈥 said veteran goaltender Chad Pieper. 鈥淲e showed that tonight and will need to play like that again in 琉璃神社 on Friday鈥
The game two victory came after an 11-3 drubbing by the Raiders on July 12 in game one.
The deciding game three goes Friday, July 19, from 琉璃神社's Memorial Arena.