HUNTSVILLE - Last year, Bill Payne had three problems when he was coaching the Huntsville Hawks’ junior lacrosse team.
A short bench, a lack of discipline and an inability to score plagued the team as it failed to win a game in 16 attempts in the Ontario Junior C Lacrosse League.
Fast-forward to the 2012 season and Payne appears to have solved one of his problems, a short bench.
The Hawks opened the season over the weekend, dropping two games. They lost in Mimico on Friday night by a close 7-5 score, but were thumped 13-0 the next day in Whitby.
“You know what killed us? Stupid penalties …undisciplined penalties in both games. We had a guy (Colby Jordan) kicked out for penalty trouble and he played that way in both games. He is one of our better players and he should have been out there putting the ball into the net and not in the penalty box. We also left too many open men and people not covering their checks. They know what they are supposed to be doing but they aren’t doing it.”
Jordan had 10 minutes and no points in each of the two Huntsville games.
Mimico built up a 5-0 lead after the first 31 minutes of the game before Huntsville put on a scoring spurt of its own, scoring twice in the late stages of the second on goals by Scott McDonald and Jon Brown and two more early in the third on shots from Scott Arlidge and Tanner Swift.
Mimico countered with two more goals in the third, but the Hawks attempted to close the gap with a late marker from Tyler Conn. But that was as close as they got.
“There is no reason we should have lost that game,” he said.“Our power play was ineffective. We outplayed and outshoot them. There is no excuse for us losing it other than we couldn’t score. Our guys continually went low on their goalie when they needed to shoot high on him.”   
Whitby opened up an 8-0 lead in the first period of Saturday’s game and never looked back, despite the Hawks having some good scoring chances, including six power plays, according to Payne.
The team welcomed captain Cole Greenaway and Ryan MacDonald back to the lineup for the Whitby contest.
“I thought having them back would be a boost to the team. They gave us a full team and they played hard but we still couldn’t get any goals going.”
Huntsville was shutout once last year, by Clarington.
Still Payne said he is optimistic about his team for this year. They are young and they have played well in spurts during the first two games and he does plan on building on the positives as the team moves forward.
Huntsville was scheduled to play in Innisfil Tuesday night against the Wolfpack.
The Hawks’ home opener is Thursday night at the Jack Bionda Arena when they meet Mimico.