Sports

Junior B Orangeville Northmen open the season with a win over Hamilton Bengals

April 29, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Orangeville Junior B Northmen have started the regular season and picked up a win in their first game of the year.

During pre-season exhibition games, the Northmen went undefeated, winning over Cambridge and Halton Hills.

They played their season opener against the Hamilton Bengals in Hamilton on Thursday, April 23.

It is a rebuilding year for the Junior B Northmen. The team lost 15 players from last year’s team.

This included five overage players and around ten players who moved up to the Northmen Junior A team.

Junior B Northmen GM Lindsay Sanderson said losing players in a town with more than one junior-level team is a part of the game.

“The nice thing about it is we’re a lacrosse town and there are some really good quality kids that played for us last year that will do well with the Junior As,” Sanderson said.

“There will be four or five of the top U17 players that will make our team, and we will probably take three or four from the Junior team who have played a couple of years in Junior C, and now they’re ready for Junior B.”

Saunderson added, “We also brought in a couple of young men from Nova Scotia on an inter-provincial transfer, so we’re filling the void. We lost 15 players from last year’s team. Ten of them will probably move up to the Junior A team, and five of them went over age. It’s a rebuild year that we are working on.”

Players who complete their minor lacrosse career are eligible to move to the Junior leagues.

In the season opener against Hamilton, the Northmen took a 3-1 lead in the first period on goals from Levi Spindler, Nolan Sanderson, and Wes Mills.

The game was a lot closer at the end of the second period when Hamilton outscored the Northmen 4-3 for the period to make it a 6-5 game with the Northmen still in the lead.

Second-period Northmen goals came from Kieran Witte, Tyler Gronroos, and Sanderson.

Orangeville went ahead 7-5 when Gronroos got his second goal of the night.

The Northmen finished off with two more goals from Robert Kee and Gronroos.

Hamilton scored two more in the third period, but the Northmen stopped them from tying it up and left the floor with a 9-8 win to start the season.

The Junior B Lacrosse League has 24 teams this season, split into 12 East and 12 West divisions.  

The West Division has teams mostly located in central-western Ontario;; however, the division extends from Owen Sound in the North down to Windsor.

East Division territory stretches from Orillia down to Mimico.

The Kahnawake Hunters are defending 2025 champions and will be looking to repeat this year.

The Orangeville Junior B home opener is scheduled for Saturday, May 2, when they will host the Wallaceburg Red Devils at the Alder Street arena in Orangeville.

Game time is 7 p.m.

Readers Comments (0)