Northmen win two of three
Tuesday June 24 2008
By Mike Rawn, Staff Writer
The Orangeville Junior A Northmen closed off a busy weekend with only their second loss of the season, 8-6 in Akwesasne.
The loss came on the heels of wins over Toronto Beaches (11-6) on Thursday, and Orillia (14-3) on Friday. The Rayburn Construction Northmen remain in first place in the Ontario Lacrosse Association standings with a 13-2 record, but Six Nations (11-1) has three games in hand as of press time Monday.
“We had a bad start and we never recovered from that,” Northmen coach Matt Sawyer said about the Akwesasne loss. “We knew it would be tough. This is a tough place to play against a good team.
“We had a good third period, and if we played like that for the full 60 [minutes] it would probably be a different outcome.”
The Northmen trailed 6-3 after 20 minutes, with goals coming from Jordan Critch, Jeremy Noble and Jesse Gamble. Trailing 7-3 heading into the final period, the Northmen made it close on a pair of goals by Brandon Ivey and a single by Mike Teeter, but couldn’t get any closer.
Orangeville started strong against Toronto, building up a 5-1 first period lead, only to see Beaches claw their way back and tie the game. A strong third period saved the Northmen, who had goals from MacLeod (3), Garrett Kerr (2), Craig England, Jon Harnett, Jason Noble, Gamble, Deron Dempster and D.J. Clevely in the game. Nick Rose picked up the win in net for Orangeville.
“We haven’t strung together three of our periods all year,” Gamble said following the Toronto win. “[Thursday] was the same thing. We had an amazing third period, and we’re going to try to string three of those together, hopefully for the rest of the year.”
The Northmen offence was the story against a struggling Orillia (4-10-1) team. After spotting the home side to a 1-0 lead, the Northmen scored eight straight goals to put the game out of reach. Orangeville goals were scored by Matt McMurray, Mat MacLeod (4), Ivey (2), Teeter, Andrew Suitor, Gamble, Dempster, Sean Gillies, Matt McNutt and Clevely.
The Northmen picked up Stephen Keogh and Todd Hosmer from Toronto Beaches in exchange for draft picks prior to Friday’s trade deadline. Keogh has 26 points in nine games this season, and is coming off a national championship win with Syracuse in NCAA Division I field lacrosse. Hosmer has 24 points in 12 games. The 21-year-olds will bring offence and experience to Orangeville.
“We’ve had our eye on them for over a year now,” Sawyer said. “They’re the big fish out there, and we wanted to land them.
“They’ve put up numbers throughout their junior career. They’re good kids, and we think they’ll be a good fit here.”
The Northmen (13-2) play at Mississauga (0-14) on Wednesday, before a crucial weekend where they host Six Nations (11-1) Saturday at 5 p.m., and Akwesasne (10-4-1) Sunday at 7 p.m. Both games take place at the Tony Rose Memorial Sports Centre. The Six Nations game will go a long way toward deciding who finishes first in the OLA standings.
“It’s still too early to look at playoff positioning, but we have to beat Akwesasne to have the tiebreaker on them, and right now we have one more loss than Six Nations so we need to get that win,” Sawyer said. “It’s a big weekend for us, certainly.”
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