Jonathon Brodie - Recorder & Times

The Brockville Braves have their own fate in their hands after beating the Smiths Falls Bears 4-2 in their regular season home closer on Friday.

With one game left on the schedule, the Braves need to get at least one point in the standings out of their matchup against the Carleton Place Canadians on Sunday if they want to move up the standings into fifth place. The Braves hold the tiebreaker against the Kemptville 73s, who sit one point ahead of them in the standings, as they won the season series over them.

If Brockville can get a point they’ll meet No. 4 Hawkesbury Hawks in the opening round of the playoffs and they’re a team Brockville beat in their last two meetings.

If they come up with a goose egg in the finale then they’ll take on the Ottawa Jr. Senators, a club the Braves have lost all six games against this season.

More importantly, though, regardless of who the Braves play in the playoffs, they’re showing something they haven’t haven’t always had much of this season.

Over the last few weeks Brockville has proven they have some grit and resilience in their game.

The Braves trailed the Bears 2-0 after Friday’s first period with some defensive lapses resulting in the goals. Brockville has now trailed at some point in three of their last four wins.

The Braves started mounting their comeback when Noah Jordan found the back of the net midway through the second period and he’s now earned at least a point in the last four games.

In the third period Brockville really got going starting with Colin Tonge scoring and then Reid Murphy picking up the game winner on the power play with less than four minutes left in the game. Jack Gill added an empty netter.

“(General manager Dustin Traylen) called us all out, me included, in January and I don’t think we had a come from behind win all year then. Maybe one,” said Braves coach Colin Birkas. “Now it feels like every night we have one.”

As the saying goes, better late than never.

There were glimpses of Brockville looking ready for the playoffs Friday.

Jack Gill was a one-man penalty killer.

Colin Tonge was relentless flying down the wing with the puck.

Derek Bureau was being his usual agitating self.

Andrew Jarvis pounced on any opponent bullying a teammate.

Now, it’ll be about finding consistency of all those elements and more heading forward.

“We have no choice at this point in the year other than to draw positives, so that’s all I’m going to do again tonight. Win or lose I was just going to draw positives from it and thankfully we won, so it’s an easier job to do that,” Birkas said.

The Braves, again, opted to rest players and nurse injuries Friday — a strategy they’ve been going with the last few weeks.

On Friday Birkas scratched Corey Caruso and Devin Moore — the team’s leading point getters — along with Dustin Rinaldo and Mack Hancock.

Despite, Sunday’s game being important as to who Brockville will matchup with in the post-season, the Braves coach has no plans of changing his game plan

“I‘m still going to rest guys tomorrow,” Birkas said. “We’re going to have to beat Ottawa at some point, right? Whether we get them in the first round or the second round, they’re waiting for us.”

Original story at Recorder.ca