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Jr A Northmen win season opener

May 13, 2015   ·   0 Comments

The Rayburn Construction Junior A Northmen opened the 2015 season with a win over the Barrie Lakeshores on Friday (May 8) at Tony Rose arena in Orangeville.

Attendance was high as fans packed the arena to see the Northmen kick off the new season.

After giving up the first goal to Barrie early in the first period the Northmen notched two from Davis Neal and Owen MacDonald – both on powerplays to end the period.

The second period was a tight battle with Barrie scoring twice to take a one goal lead.

O-ville’s Brendan Welsh got a pair to tied the game and then get the go ahead goal late in the frame.

The Lakeshores again took the lead when Spencer Pyke tied it up then followed through with a second that gave Barrie a one goal lead.

Late in the period, Northmen Ryan Myles got a short-handed goal followed by a second short-handed effort by Ian Mackay to make it a 6-5 O-ville game going into the final period.

The Northmen stepped it up to outscore Barrie 4-1 in the last period to leave the floor with a 10-6 win and their first game in the plus column for the season.

“We’ve practicing hard here since February,” Said Northmen Travis Brown. “We knew they were going to be better than before and we had to come out strong. They did give us a challenge but we started to go strong in the third.”

It was a close battle in the second period but the third frame saw the Northmen take control of the floor leaving the Barrie team frustrated.

“We started making sure our offence was taking away their fast breaks,” Brown said. “That slowed them down a lot. They started getting tired with our defence and they wouldn’t go through the middle so we played a tough D and they weren’t getting any opportunities.”

There was a lot of rough stuff in the game with the Lakeshores getting dinged for most of the infractions. Orangeville was assessed eight minutes in minors. Barrie took 18 minutes in minor penalties and eight minutes on two double minors – a fact the the Barrie bench was pretty vocal about.

“We played them in an exhibition game at the start of the year and there was a lot of fights,” Brown said.

The squad was aware that Monday’s game would most likely be another tough one to get through.

Brown is playing his first year on the Junior A squad after moving up from a Midget team last season.

“It’s a big step up from Midget for sure,” Brown said. “It’s way faster, and higher intensity level. Everybody is stronger and the ball moves a lot faster.”

The Northmen were in Whitby on Tuesday (May 12) to take on the Warriors.

It was the first time the Northmen have faced Whitby this season.

The game ended in a 9-9 tie.

The squad will be back on home turf at Tony Rose arena on Sunday, May 17, to host the Mimico Mountaineers.

Game time is 7:00 p.m.

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