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Junior B Northmen hoist championship cup

August 11, 2016   ·   0 Comments

Sweep over Gaels in final round

The Orangeville Junior B Northmen are the reigning champions of Ontario Junior B Lacrosse after winning their final series over the Green Gaels of Clarington on Monday, August 8, in Bowmanville.

The Northmen had a stellar season, winning their division and finishing second over all in the 25 team Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League.

The Northmen stormed through the playoffs beginning with a three game sweep over the Owen Sound North Stars in the first round.

Meeting up with the Six Nations Rebels the second round, the series went four games and ended on July 15, with a 5-3 Orangeville win.

Orangeville earned the right to move on to the final after winning the West conference title after dispatching the Windsor Clippers in a tough series that went the distance.

After playing to a 2-2 series tie, the two teams returned to the Alder Street arena in Orangeville for a one game showdown to determine the winner.

The Orangeville team dominated the final game leaving with an 11-5 win and the opportunity to go to the OJBLL final against the Gaels.

The Clarington team came to the finals as a top team who lost only one game in the regular season and finished in the number one spot with 38 points.

The final best-of-five series was a tough as could be expected with Orangeville winning the first two games by a single goal.

The final saw the Northmen leading 2-1 at the end of the first period.

They kept up the pressure stretching the lead to 7-3 by the end of the second period.

Orangeville took the game 7-4, to win the series and hoist the J.A. MacDonald Trophy to claim the championship.

“I thought we played out best game of the series last night,” Northmen head coach Bruce Codd said of the final game. “All three games were slow starting. It was around the ten minute mark before either team could score. After that we got on a nice run. We had a good start in the final game. I thought the second period was again, our best. We had a couple of short handed goals to really get us on a roll in the second period and I think that was the difference in the game. We played like we wanted to win the Ontario Championship.”

The Northmen are hosting the Junior B Founders Championship Cup this season.

Win or lose, the Northmen as hosts, would be in the tournament, but Codd said they wanted to earn their berth in the championship tournament.

“We had a couple of goals at the start of the year that we wanted to accomplish and one was that we didn’t want to go in (to the tournament) as the host. We wanted to go in as the Ontario Champions. That’s a credit to the guys. It was something that was important to us and they earned it.”

The Founders Cup will get underway on Monday, August 15, at the Alder Street in Orangeville.

The first round of games will take place on Tuesday, August 16, with the national championship final game taking place on Sunday, August 21.

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