It wasn’t the start that the coaching staff and other team officials expected and, when it was all said and done, the Huntsville Hawks lost their Junior C season opener 4-2 to the Whitby Warriors.
The offence, which was supposed to be the strength of this year’s experienced team, sputtered, and if it weren’t for the goaltending of newly acquired 18-year-old Mitchell Wagner of Orangeville, the margin of victory for the Warriors would have been much greater. Wagner stopped 60 shots and allowed just four goals.
The Hawks put themselves behind the eight ball early, running into a rash of penalties in the first period and fell behind 2-0 before Nate Zantingh scored just past the mid-way mark of the second period. He also set up Matt Loader for the second goal in the third period, but those were the only two they could get by Adam Allman who played a solid game in the Whitby goal.
“For a team that put up 174 goals in 16 games last year, to get only two in sixty minutes of lacrosse is pretty unreal,” said coach Joe O’Halloran, trying to analyze what had just happened. “Our defense came to play and Wagner was great in goal. Not bad for a kid playing his first Jr C game.”
The Hawks had 37 minutes in penalties while the Warriors had 27 minutes.
A lot of it was just undisciplined play, lazy penalties, slashing, high sticking, a lot of time in the penalty box. If we could have played more than 15 minutes five-on-five, the outcome might have been different.Coach O’Halloran
Going into the game the coaching staff were concerned they only had two weeks to prepare for their first game putting them behind the schedules of most of the other teams in the league. The Hawks were unable to start earlier because of hockey commitments at the Jack Bionda arena.
Also, they were informed late that last year’s goaltender Robbie Moore had retired from the game after suffering a second concussion while playing field lacrosse at Queen’s University. Moore received his first concussion playing last year in Huntsville. A series of calls led to the acquisition of Mitchell Wagner and his performance against Whitby was promising in an otherwise frustrating night.
About 125 fans watched the game, but didn’t have a lot to cheer about. Huntsville’s next home game is against Barrie on May 14. They play in Cornwall next Saturday night (May 7).
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