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Jr B Northmen advance to next round

July 23, 2014   ·   0 Comments

Win over Windsor leads to semi-final series

The MacMaster Buick GMC Orangeville Junior B Northmen have advanced to the semi-final round of the Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League playoffs after winning their quarter-final series against the Windsor Clippers in five games.

The final win came at home at the Alder Street arena on Tuesday night (July 22) in front of a large and vocal hometown crowd.

With the series tied at two games each, the final game gave no margin for error for either team if they wanted to move to the next round of playoffs.

At the end of the first period, the Northmen had already gained a foothold in the final outcome when they went ahead 4-1 to end the frame.

The Clippers responded in the second period with three goals, but again the Northmen battled back out-scoring Windsor 4-3 in the period to set up the final period with an 8-4 lead.

“We got our good size lead in the first period and that got the crowd on our side,” said Northmen head coach Bruce Codd, “That was a big crowd for us tonight, which was great. You could feel some more energy in the building.”

The Northmen were trailing 2-1 in the series after the first three games, but bounced back in game four with a 7-3 win in Windsor on July 19 to tie the series.

Codd had confidence in the team before going to Windsor even though a loss would have meant an end to their season.

“Obviously the pressure’s on us if – if we want to keep our season going we have to win. But you can look at it the other way – the pressure’s on them – they have to finish it or they’re coming back to Orangeville. We’ll be ready.”

By the mid-way mark in the third period of Tuesday’s game it was obvious the O-ville squad were going to take the series.

With a 10-5 lead and and eight minutes remaining, the squad played a good ball-management period to end the game at 11-6 and earn the right to advance to the semi-final round.

Next up the squad will be facing the Six Nations Rebels.

There’s not doubt this will be the toughest series of games the Northmen will play this year.

The Six Nations team is undefeated for the season after going 20 games straight in the regular season and sweeping both of their playoff series and are hands-down the favourite for winning the championship.

“We’ve certainly come through two really hard series,” Codd said. “The St. Catharines series was a very physical series. We’ve had two tough series and hopefully we’ve learned a lot from each of those, and get ready for these guys. There’s no question they’re (Rebels) are a good team. They haven’t lost all year – but we haven’t seen them.”

The Northmen didn’t meet up with the Six Nations squad during the regular season so it will be interesting to see what happens during the first game when they two squads staring feeling each out in the first period.

Game one of the series will get underway at Six Nations on Friday, July 25.

The series will return to Orangeville for game two on Wednesday, July 30, at Tony Rose Memorial Arena.

The game is scheduled for 8:00 p.m.

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