After much anticipation, the Oakville Buzz finally played their first regular-season game of the 2022 season.
The Buzz squared off against the Whitby Warriors at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre (TRAC) for what ended up being a great game of Lacrosse.
The game didn’t start well for the Buzz as the team found themselves losing 3-0 to the Warriors just over 10 minutes into the first period.
But with the Buzz on a powerplay, captain Will Sheehan fed Amos Whitcomb a beautiful pass to make the game 3-1 and gave Oakville their first goal of the season.
Unfortunately, the Buzz let in two more quick goals before the end of the period making the score 5-1 Whitby after the first period.
The second period didn’t get much better for Oakville as the team allowed three more unanswered goals making the game 8-1 Whitby with just over seven and a half minutes left.
After that goal, the Buzz started to wake up.
Oakville scored two unanswered goals by Will Sheehan and Xander Derkatz before the end of the period to make the game 8-3 Whitby by the end of the second period.
Then the Buzz scored three straight goals by Will Sheehan, Braeden Lockyer, and Tanner Cole at the start of the third period to make the game 8-6 for Whitby.
The Warriors made the game 9-6 with a goal by Parker Pipher, bringing the lead back to three goals.
But shortly after that goal, Malikye Good made the game 9-7 on a one-timer courtesy of a fantastic pass by Amos Whitcomb.
The Buzz fought to the bitter end and were able to get another goal by Will Sheehan to make the game 9-8.
However, the team ran out of time, and Whitby won the season opener with a score of 9-8.
After the game, Will Sheehan commented on the team's fight throughout the game, saying, “I thought we did a really good job fighting back. We started down 8-1 and we battled back goal by goal. I’m really proud of the guys.”
Sheehan also talked about how the team needs to improve their starts, saying, “We just got to come out of the gate from the first buzzer with a spark. You can’t go down 8-1 and win a game. We are going to learn from that, and we are going to be a good team this year.”
Oakville’s next game will be Thursday as they travel on the road to face the Six Nations Arrows.