Junior C Hunters punch playoff ticket

In their first season of play, the Kahnawake Junior C Hunters are off to the Ontario Junior C Lacrosse League (OJCLL) playoffs, winning Wednesday’s play-in game convincingly against the Akwesasne Lightning 15-4 at the Sports Complex.

“I think, with the circumstances involved, this is by far our best game of the season so far,” said head coach Eric Jacobs.

Kahnawake and Akwesasne, the fourth and fifth seeds respectively, faced off in the winner-take-all game to see who would be facing the number one seed North Shore Kodiaks in the first round of the playoffs.

As the Sports Complex started to fill up, the Hunters were already all over the Lightning, breaking up passes, putting pressure on the players in transition to create turnovers and limit how much offensive zone time Lightning players could get.

“It breaks up a lot of possessions. If a guy’s not looking and you come up hard from behind them, that breaks up their 30 seconds that they have, and we get the ball, and that’s our chance of scoring on offense,” said Hunters’ assistant captain Jackson Norton, who had three goals and five assists against Akwesasne.

With that strategy, the Hunters got up to a quick 2-0 lead, including a shorthanded goal less than three minutes into the opening period by Rowehrahatie Jacobs.

A permissive defensive shift allowed the Lightning to get on the board at 14:09, and for a little bit, it seemed like the Lightning had flipped a switch and were getting themselves back into the game.

That all ended when Tehorahkwaneken Albany scored the first of his three first-period goals at 11:03, the first of five unanswered goals in the period by Kahnawake - three of which were on the power play.

“At times this season, when we got three, four goal leads, they thought the game was in the bag. And again, with the learning curve, mostly all 17-year-olds, they realized there’s no quit in other teams just because they’re down. It’s lacrosse. You can be down by eight goals, and then 10 minutes later, it’s a tie game, or they’re up by a couple at that point, you never know,” said the Hunters’ head coach.

That would not materialize, though, as the Hunters’ lead never went below four goals after the first period.

Midway through the second, with the Hunters up 11-3, Akwesasne’s Aronhiawaks Rice attempted to goad a fight, throwing down the gloves and punching the helmet cage of a Hunters player, who did not return the favour and allowed the referees to separate them without retaliation.

“We were up 11-3. We don’t want to get any guys suspended for the playoffs. We just want to stay smart,” said Norton.

“The pregame speech was all about discipline. We’re moving on. They’re not going to. So, if you want to play in the playoffs, keep your heads, and take a punch. You have a helmet, just walk away. That’s exactly what he did,” said head coach Jacobs.

The Lightning players received three major penalties for his troubles, giving the Hunters a 15-minute power play. The Lightning’s coaching staff requested that the clock keep running during stoppages soon after.

Even if their first-round opponent is the Kodiaks, who have won all three of their regular season meetings, the Hunters are still looking forward to playoff action.

“It honestly feels good that we have our spot in the playoffs now, and we’ve just got to keep building and keep working to our goal, which is to win the Meredith Cup at the end of the playoffs,” said defender Shatekaienthokwen Van Dommelen.

“The playoffs are a whole different game. I feel like going into this series that they’re going to think that they are going to walk all over us, because of how they had the upper hand on us throughout the regular season.”

At the time of writing, the schedules for the divisional semifinals have yet to be released.

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