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Jr A Northmen claim Ontario championship

August 11, 2016   ·   0 Comments

Sweep over Six Nations in final series

In a final series that saw some of the best lacrosse this year in the Province, the Orangeville Junior A Northmen came out on top with a four game sweep over the Six Nations Arrows to win the Ontario Junior A Lacrosse League championship.

The final game was played Tuesday (Aug. 9) night at Orangeville’s Tony Rose arena in front of a capacity crowd.

The Northmen entered the playoffs as the second place team in the OJALL winning 14 games in their 20 games schedule.

Six Nations led the pack in the regular season with a 17-3 record.

In the end the Northmen rose to the occasion and finished with a win in four games straight in the best of seven series.

It was a tough battle all the way through.

Orangeville managed a huge comeback in game one of the series after allowing the Arrows to score five goals in the first half of the first period, then having a nine goal second period to take the lead.

Game two had the Northmen in the lead from the start and the kept ahead for the entire game leaving with a 12-9 win to leave the Arrows rattled and trailing the series 2-0.

Back in Six Nations territory for game three, the Arrows took the lead four times and each time the Northmen responded and tied the game.

The game came down to the final minutes of the third period with the Northmen scoring to take the lead. They held on for the 5-4 win.

The final game in Orangeville saw a pumped up crowd fill the house in anticipation of an Orangeville victory.

After tying at two in the first period, the Northmen returned for the second and took a decisive lead on a goal from Travis

Brown and three goals put into the net by Joel Tinney.

The Arrows fought back in the third period but the Northmen kept pace and took the game 9-7 and hoisted the Provincial championship trophy.

“I didn’t think it was going to be a sweep but we got there, it was good,” said Northmen captain Joel Coyle after Tuesday’s winning game. “I was expecting them to have some push-back, especially defensively. But we just played out asses off. We kept an even keel. We knew if we played our best defensively and we had good offence, we would take it.”

Looking back over a successful regular season, Coye said the team gained momentum as the season went on.

“Defensively we were real solid all year. Then our offence started getting going in game ten, game eleven. From there we kept climbing and peaked at the right time.”

The Northmen will now go on to compete in the national Minto Cup championship.

This year, the Minto Cup will be hosted in Langley, British Columbia.

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