Junior B Hunters take commanding lead

The Kahnawake Junior B Mohawks have a chance to move on to the East Division finals as soon as Friday, as they have a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five series against the Clarington Green Gaels.

The Hunters won the first two games of the series on the road, 12-5 on Saturday and 8-7 on Sunday. The three remaining games, if necessary, will all be at the Sports Complex on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

“The crowd is going to be ginormous, especially on powwow weekend. Everyone is going to be there,” said Hunters defender Darris Jones.

“As soon as you peer into that crowd for a split second, you’ll see people who are there supporting you. The feeling of connection, that feeling is so intense in that little moment, it’s amazing.”

Even with the prospect of a huge crowd backing them, if the Hunters can get the series done on Friday, that would be a positive, to make it so they will have less wear and tear going into the finals.

There, they will either face the Nepean Knights, the best team in the east during the regular season, or the Akwesasne Thunder, who are currently leading the series 2-1 and defeated the Hunters 14-11 in their last game of the regular season.

“Luckily for us, they’ll probably beat each other up so much by the time we have to play any team, they should be a little more beat up than us,” said Jones.

“Personally, I’d rather face Nepean, just for the simple fact that we arguably struggled with Akwesasne more. They kind of came into their own towards the end of the season.”

Ironically, Akwesasne came into their own after a 20-4 loss to the Hunters on June 4.

Following that, the Thunder didn’t lose another game in the regular season, before sweeping the higher-seed Durham Ironheads.

If that sounds strangely familiar to the Hunters’ playoff run last year to you, you’re not the only one. This year’s Hunters players have noticed it, too.

“Yes, exactly, we were all talking about that,” said Jones about the familiarity between the two playoff runs.

“It is scary. I mean, for any team to do that, but especially a Native team, just because of the support behind them.”

In the meantime, the Green Gales will still be coming to town on Friday for the 8 p.m. game, looking to come back in the series.

The first game was all Kahnawake, who never trailed and ended the first period leading 6-1.

“I think game one, we just came out so hot, everything just went our way, and we felt great. The vibe on the bench was just amazing,” said Jones.

Game two was a lot closer, and while Kahnawake also never trailed, it found itself having to kill a 10-minute power play with just a few seconds more than 10 minutes left to go in the final period, after an altercation between multiple players occurred, including fighting, facemask penalties, and “infractions within the exchange box” major penalties being given on both sides.

“I think that was of one of the scariest moments of my career, having the ball on my stick and being trusted to kill time was not an easy task,” said Jones.

In a game with built-in possession changes, you can’t really just stay behind your net and wait for the clock to run out.

Jones said that they did not have a preset time-killing strategy, but instead trusted each other and used the connection they had built with each other on the floor to keep the ball out of the net, limiting the Green Gaels to 14 shots in the period, which is not that much considering the circumstances.

“My team’s connection, it’s just grown way stronger now than it was at the beginning of season,” said Jones.

“We trusted each other, and we just stuck with what we do,” said Jones.

To move on to the finals, they’ll have to keep that connection against a team looking to keep their season alive.

[email protected]