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Schreiber, Archers Outlast Atlas to Advance to the Semifinals

By Doug Greenberg | Aug 5, 2020

After a disappointing end to the Group Stage, Archers, off a tremendous performance from Tom Schreiber, bounced back in a big way during the Elimination Round, defeating Atlas by a final score of 11-9.


Breakdown

Archers dominated this game in the early goings. To begin, rookie sensation Grant Ament found Joey Sankey up top for the step-down goal, which was then quickly followed up by a Josh Currier score on the feed from Tom Schreiber. Will Manny, on the feed from Scott Ratliff, and Brendan Fowler, off a faceoff no less, also tallied goals before John Crawley stopped the bleeding for Atlas. The first quarter ended with Archers taking a 4-1 lead.

After a relatively quiet group stage, Schreiber made his presence known in a big way in the second quarter. After his assist in the first, the Princeton product scored two goals to begin the second, following it up with an assist shortly thereafter. He would finish off the hat trick in the same quarter on a nice isolation play.

Even after all of that though, Atlas was not out of this game by any stretch. Chris Cloutier notched his squad’s second score and Rob Pannell would get on the board with his first goal of the evening on a feed from Connor Buczek. 

Speaking of Buczek, he would finish a huge two-pointer that just barely survived the scrutiny of a review when his toe was barely behind the two-point arc. The replay officials earned their paychecks tonight, reviewing that goal and overturning two more, including efforts from Manny and Pannell. The latter attackman would score one more goal before halftime on a nice rocker step from X to pull Atlas to within two at the break

The second half proved to be more of a defensive battle than the first. Drew Adams, who broke Archers’ tandem goalie situation by playing the whole game over the injured Adam Ghitelman, was outstanding all night, stopping 12 shots for 60 percent saved. Regardless, there was scoring in this half and Manny would be the one to start it off, taking the feed from Ratliff driving down the alley. 

But Atlas would not let this game go. Cloutier completed his own hat trick on consecutive goals, taking a feed from Pannell for one and scoring on a strong dunk from the left side for the other.

Manny would get one more to keep this a two-point game headed into the fourth quarter.

Despite another strong performance from Trevor Baptiste, who won 62 percent of his faceoffs, Atlas found it difficult to maintain possession and get quality shots. Hence, their only goal of the final period of their season came from Pannell, who finished on a beautiful move from X. It was a one-point game and still seemingly within Atlas’ grasp until Ryan Ambler slammed the door shut with a nice rollback on the two-man game with Manny to score the final goal of the contest. Archers would win this one 11-9 to advance to the semifinals.


Ramifications

What a resounding win for Archers. This team had to be disappointed after losing out on the one seed to Whipsnakes, but they have to be happy they’re not facing the Whips coming off their first-round bye. Instead, the Archers will face a resurgent Chaos squad Thursday at 8:00 PM ET on NBC Sports Gold.

For Atlas, this is obviously a disheartening end of the season for a team that had big ambitions considering the talent it possessed. On the bright side, based on the seeding of the Elimination Round, it now possesses the number one pick in next year’s College Draft, which is a nice consolation prize in its own right.