That several of the Jr. B elder players have seen plenty of lacrosse action of late, playing up with the Junior A affiliate Burlington Chiefs, and may not have entered the junior B playoffs last night as fresh as possible, was perhaps not viewed with great concern given the B club's 2019 results against 6th seed Owen Sound North Stars who had fallen readily to 3rd seed Hamilton by scores of 11-6 and 15-2.
But the seemingly-improved orange-shirts gave the home side fits last night at The Dave; in particular 18-year-old Hayden Coulter who unleashed three-straight goals against Lucas Nagy in the back half of period one to claim an alarming 4-1 Owen Sound lead at the break.
Late-season Hammertown arrival Braeden Saris would step into a lead role, netting a pair as the Bengals would spend the rest of the match slowly closing the gap while Nagy became progressively harder to beat. Captain Tanner Brennecke was direly needed this night and responded with his own pair: one a shrewd power-play side-door slicer and the other on the back end of an ultra-slick Argent give-and-go play in tight confines.
Also on the highlight reel were ex-Wallaceburg ringer Aaron Underwood's second goal since arriving in Hamilton at the deadline, this off a deft Duncan Carte capture-and-feed, and later a down-floor Parkinson sprint to capture a hail mary in the nick of time and fire it by goalie-in-headlights Martin Kaleb.
With three-minutes-something on the third period game clock, Bengals down a pair and fans struggling with the potential of a game one home loss it was Hunter Aggus with a sudden smart fly-by reacher restoring faith at just the moment it was needed.
Also stepping it up this game was the dangerously agile Tyson Allison who completed the deal with a minute to go, finally tying the game just in time for overtime.
First minute of extra play and the North Stars roared down on a clean breakaway which the now-invincible Nagy calmly turned away. Moments later Hunter Aggus completed his heroics with another fine goal, the game-winner, quarterbacked by Argent and Luke Robinson. The Allison brothers each added insurance goals with Cooper claiming media award honours for an extra crafty and dominant performance. Underwood gets passed back the coveted Hammer. 11-8 final and the B's are headed for Owen Sound today for game two of the five-game set and a whole new chapter in the adventure.
