Kahnawake laxers win at Border Wars

As girls’ lacrosse continues to grow in Kahnawake, five players from the community joined up with other athletes from Akwesasne, Six Nations, and Cornwall to form the Eastern Nations Elite at the Border Wars box lacrosse tournament.

Not only did Oriah Jones, Ashtyn David, Ietohnhiiostha Two-Axe, Iotenhari:io Lahache, and Teietsitsanekarons Mayo represent their community, their team finished first after round-robin play and won the whole tournament in their 2031/2030 division.

“When the season ended, they were hungry for more lacrosse,” said Al Jones, the team’s head coach and father of Oriah.

“To watch these girls grow from the beginning of summer, there was a huge growth of development. So, I wanted to keep these girls going and get ready for the summer season.”

There were not many opportunities for tournaments in the offseason before Border Wars, he said, and the fact that many players were busy with hockey meant it was more feasible to make a team made up of players from many communities.

It was something new for the girls from Kahnawake – and for him, too.

The team lost its opening contest 4-2 to the Nova Scotia Sirens U15F team, with a bad start to the game being too much to come back from.

“It was almost they were gun shy. As soon as the whistle blew, Nova Scotia picked the ball up, ran down, and scored it in like 10 seconds,” said Al.

“We live and learn every game. And we adjusted.”

Although they did not have perfect games against their next opponents, taking many penalties, they still won 5-4 against the Toronto Rock Stars 2031 in a shootout and 4-3 against the SuperStar/USBOXLA Developmental.

The team started to click more as the games progressed, and banking two wins made them confident, Al said.

“This is all new for all of us. We didn’t know what to expect. We really didn’t. We knew our team was talented, but we had no idea how talented,” he said.

Their last round robin opponent was the Toronto Rock Stars 2030, which had thus far dominated their opponents on the score sheet.

The game plan to counter that was always play five-on-five defense, not allow anything in transition or on fast breaks, not give them any room, and especially not give them powerplays.

And it worked. They quickly went up 3-0 over the Rock Stars 2030, capitalized on the mistakes they made trying to come back in the game, and beat them 6-3.

Al said the Rock Stars 2030 were almost as surprised as they were.

“They were shocked, because they were bowling over everybody,” he said.

They met again in the finals the next day, and this time Toronto got off to a quick lead, but the Elites clawed their way back, winning 7-4.

On the other side of the border in Toronto, Al’s son Darris and the Snake Island Muskies took home the win in the 2027/2026 Ontario division.

“Having two champions in one house was a great feeling,” said Al.

“It was awesome. Our team was insanely stacked,” said Darris.

“Everyone could do everything. And when you have a team like that, of Junior players who are just used to that caliber, then it’s not really too stressful.”

The stats back him up: they went undefeated in the tournament, scoring more than three times as many goals (48) as they allowed (15) in five games, finals included.

“I go to school with a lot of the kids that we played with at the tournament. We already had a little bond between most of us,” said Darris.

For those he had not played with before, he said that it is not hard for him to get to know someone when they are on the floor, the bench, and the locker room together.

The finals was the closest game the Muskies played during the tournament, a 7-6 win against the Toronto Rock Stars 2008, which they had beaten during round robin play 6-3.

“Our team, we just were better, we played better, we just tried hard and came out with the win. I think, really, it was just all our players doing their job,” said Darris.

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