SIX NATIONS — With the last two easy wins this past week, and without calculating a Tuesday night game in Niagara which will miss our deadline, they hold first place in the South West Division, but first overall of the 25 teams of the OJBLL with a 8-1-0 record for 16 points. It is expected the Rebels will win Tuesday night, the question will be by how much.
Offensively, the Rebels lead the league by a wide margin with 138 goals while giving up a stingy 54 so far, without Tuesday’s stats added. Last time the Thunderhawks and Rebels met, Six Nations turned in a 21-6 win.
Saturday night at the Point Edward Arena, Layne Smith Added six goals and an assist to his impressive statistics and, again without Tuesday night’s results, has amassed 27 goals and 13 assists for 40 points in nine games. Already doubling his pace from last season. Interestingly enough, the only loss so far this season came against Orangeville May, 8, the only game so far this young season coach Miles General has had to miss due to work.
Also scoring in the walk over the Pacers were Justin Martin (3G,1A), Josh Miller (1G,3A), Sid Powless (1G,1A), Wes Whitlow (1G), Baldwin Tanner (1G), and Kevin Owen Hill (1G,1A). Dustin Hill and Mike Martin-Able shared the win in goal.
Between 4:38 of the second period and 4:49 of the third, the Rebels put together a nine-goal string of unanswered goals.
The Rebels left the power on from Friday night when they had the offence working like a machine and the defence like a stone wall.
Tanner Baldwin scored six goals and assisted on another as the Six Nations Jr. B Rebels flexed their scoring muscle by crushing the St. Catharines Spartans 22-4, Friday night at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena.
The Spartans were outshot 77-35 along the way, as the Rebels seemed to score at will. There were several multiple-point Rebels in a well-balanced attack. Wes Whitlow (3G,5A), Gates Abrams (1G,5A), Josh Miller (2G,4A), Layne Smith (3G,1A), Sid Powless (2G,2A), and Chayton King (2G,3A) all add points to their stats sheets.
Dustin Hill got the win in the Rebels net, facing 35 shots.
With all this success and talent, one might think coaching this team would be easy, but for rookie coach Miles General, good is never good enough and admits it’s hard to keep your edge when you are winning so easily. But to prevent falling into bad habits General has a new strategy for his team beginning with moving their practice times from Thursday to Wednesday.
“We didn’t want to go too hard on the guys on a Thursday night practice just before a Friday night game, so I think we have been a little too lax at practice,” says General. “We’ve been getting a lot of goals, yes, but we haven’t been getting them right way. It seems our best opponent this year is going to be ourselves.”
His plan is simple. Work hard and scrimmage the best offence in the league against the best defence in the league and use themselves as the standard.
Six Nations teams are always in playing condition with year-round competitive lacrosse in summer and winter leagues, but as the other clubs get up to speed with the Rebels, things will get tougher and General wants his charge to be ready.
Future Rebels games include, Fri. May 19, versus Welland at the ILA with an 8 p.m. start. Then the Rebels are on the road to St. Kitts to take another swat at the Spartans, Saturday night.
