Merchants Strike First in OSL Finals

By Mark Stehlin

The Brooklin Merchants and Six Nations Rivermen kicked off the 2024 Ontario Series Lacrosse Finals with game one at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Ohsweken, ON on Saturday night. These teams met three times in the regular season, in the first game on May 3, the Merchants won 12-11 at home and the next day took a 19-16 loss in Six Nations. Later on in the season, the Merchants took their second loss against the Rivermen by a score of 11-6. 

The Merchants dispatched Hamilton in three straight games to win the semi-final series against the Bengals and the Rivermen took care of Owen Sound the same way to set up this final.

It took the teams 10 minutes to score the first goal tonight as Kellen Pullera put one past Dustin Hill.  The teams traded goals and went to the first break deadlocked at 4-4.

Head coach Ryan Degerdon said "I asked the guys before the game how they want to be remembered in this series". He added "do you want to be remembered for just being there or that you laid it on the line?"

Assistant Coach Mark Debrone commented on the flow of the game by saying "we would score and they would score on the next shift and it was a little bit of back and forth."  He added "we realized it was time to settle in on defense and get the offense the ball and let them do their thing."

Degerdon used a well-known phrase by defining the "TSN turning point" in the game, he reported "there was a point in the second period where they took the lead after scoring two straight and I said to myself what's going to happen here, it turned out we scored four straight after that and won the period 7-3", for an 11-7 lead for Brooklin after forty minutes.

The Rivermen won the final frame by a score of 3-2 but it would not be enough and the Merchants took the 13-10 win and 1-0 series lead. 

Degerdon said "in the last few minutes there was an injury on the floor which gave me a chance to call the guys over and reminded them they played a great 55 minutes or so and to calm down and finish it out, which they did."

Scoring for the Merchants - Bragg (0,1) Renaud (4,2) Carrigan (2,3) Watts (2,2) Goodchild (0,3) Boyd (2,3) McCrory (0,1) Elliott (1,1) D Pipher (0,1) Pullera (1,2) Morgan (0,1) P Pipher (0,1) Hickey (1,1) 

These teams will meet in game two on Sunday night at 7:30 in front of a large Ontario Lacrosse Festival crowd at Iroquois Park Sports Centre.