Battle of the Warriors begins

BRANTFORD – After easily turning away the Caledon Bandits, 19-6 and 16-3, in round one of the OJCLL playoffs, the Six Nations Warriors and the Brantford Warriors now do battle in the semi-finals. The Brantford Warriors dispatched the Oakville Buzz in two straight of their best-of-three series.

The battle of the Warriors began at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena Sunday night and not as the Six Nations version wanted. Brantford finished the regular season in fourth place, 10 points behind the league leading Six Nations Warriors, but on this given Sunday, Brantford took Game 1, of the best of five series, 11-10 at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena (ILA).

Six Nations notched the first four goals of the game beginning with Jaxon Martin’s first of the game scored 30 seconds into the game. That was followed by Tehashitchele Powless, Todd Thomas Jr., and Daris Anderson.

Brantford began the comeback at 12:09 with Sam Gower scoring from Ty Argent, and Caleb Wells from Argent and Michael Comeau to end the first period with Six Nations leading 4-2.

Comeau opened the second period at 1:24 from Jayden Drege at 1:24. Six Nations got that back when Todd Thomas scored two minutes later. Ryan Johnson made it 6-3 for Six Nations but once again Brantford brought it to a one goal margin when Ryan Dorr and Hunter Aggus scored on Jackson Miller in the Six Nations’ net.

Marshall Powless and Jaxson Martin netted back-to-back goals 35 seconds apart to close the period with Six Nations hanging on to an 8-5 lead.

Ryan Johnson gave Six Nations 9-5 lead from Marshall Powless at 1:11 of the third period, but that was gobbled up by Brantford’s Connor Gillis and Jayden Drage, and the score was 9-7 for Six Nations.

Nathan Maracle added another Six Nations goal at 8:08 and with the score it looked like Six Nations was about to take the first game of the series. But Brantford had something to say about that.

Digging deep, Brantford slowly started pecking away at the Six Nations 10-7 lead with 10 minutes left to play.

Caleb Wells made it 10-8 and Ryan Dorr scored to bring Brantford to within one of Six Nations at 10-9. And they were not finished. Angus Hunter tied the game at 101-10 at 13:13 and Austin Giles scored the game winner, unassisted, with two seconds left of the clock or the 11-10 win.

Game 2 is set for Wednesday night, July 12, at the Wayne Gretzky Main Rink in Brantford at 8 p.m., with Game 3 back at the Caledonia Arena the next night, Thursday, July 13 at 8 p.m. Game 4 is back at the Gretzky Rink, Saturday, July 15 at 7 p.m. Game 5 has not been set to date, but if necessary, it will be at Caledonia.

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