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Northmen Novice team undefeated for the season

September 1, 2017   ·   0 Comments

Written By Brian Lockhart

The Orangeville Northmen Novice team have done what very few lacrosse teams can accomplish.

They ended their season as an undefeated team going 39-0 after playing in the League as well as acing tournaments around the region and as far away as British Columbia before going on to become Provincial champions.

“It comes down to how hard they work,” explained head coach Bruce Codd of defining the team’s success. “They are a bunch of kids who are always at the Junior A and Junior B games – a lot of them have older brothers who play the sport. They put the work in and love the game.”

In the course of the season the Northmen dominated every game scoring 475 goals for the season while allowing only 54 to be scored against.

With two goalies and fifteen runners the team was a finely tuned squad from the beginning of the season.

“We had two very good goalies – Jesse Morrison and Cole Mulder – they are two of the best goaltenders in the province. We had three well balanced lines that all contributed and could all score. That’s a big reason why our numbers were so high,” Codd said. “We knew we were a strong team – we had a feeling this was going to be a good year. A few years ago when we were at the Tyke A level with this group we lost the semi-final and that was our only loss that year.”

Codd who also coaches the Northmen Junior B team and led that team to a national Founders Cup championship this season said coaching the younger players is a little different because of their age but the same principles of the game apply.

“There are some subtle differences between how you interact with a nine or ten year old verses a 17 to 21 year old, but he principles are the same. Your expectations of coming to the rink and working hard and playing the game the right way are the same.”

Codd, along with assistant coaches Shane Sanderson, Josh Sanderson, and Rusty Kruger, have coached most of the player on this team for the past several years and worked with them to develop as lacrosse players.

“We played zone games and a bunch of tournaments around the region. We also went to British Columbia to play a tournament. We went 7-0 in British Columbia with a goal difference of 97-7. We had a lot of compliments when we were out there, ” said Shane Sanderson. “We play at the highest level of lacrosse at that age level. It’s all about skill development. Several of the kids have moved up from a winning team from last year.”

The team aced tournaments in Brampton, Oakville, and Orangeville during the season then went on to win the Ontario championship in Whitby with a 9-1 win over the Peterborough Lakers in the final game.

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