The Westlock Midget Rock have made history and completed a perfect regular season.
The Rock went 13-0 in the Greater Edmonton Lacrosse Council regular season schedule and capped the historic run with a 13-2 victory over the Beaumont Raiders at the Rotary Spirit Centre June 18.
“It feels pretty cool,” said Cole Perkins. “Usually the first couple of games we get slaughtered and then we improve. This year we started out strong. It was a good year.”
Perkins praised his teammates for the hard effort throughout the season.
“Blair Boulerice is always going hard and Tyler Tymkow is always giving 100 per cent.”
The Rock will now enjoy a bye while they await their first opponent in playoffs, who will be the winner of a June 20 matchup between the Edmonton Wizards and the Leduc Crush.
The squad will meet up for a hard practice before their playoff run begins.
Regardless of the opponent, the club’s first playoff game is slated for June 22 in Edmonton.
Head coach Shane Boulerice credited the long tradition of Westlock lacrosse for his team’s outstanding season.
“It’s been years with the kids, pretty much the same group moving up every second year,” he said. “That helps the team excel.”
With such a wealth of talent, the biggest challenge the Rock have faced so far is finding worthy opponents to battle.
Coach Boulerice noted that most of the teams the Rock would be facing were the same teams they met in the regular season.
However, a non-league game against the St. Albert Rams earlier in the month was enough of a thumping to keep the guys from getting too confident going into the playoffs.
“That really put the team in perspective, they whooped us,” said the coach.
“That helped. It’s a hard working team. We don’t really get that overconfident.”
Boulerice added that the Rock needed to keep their head in the game and not underestimate their opponents to avoid getting upset in the upcoming playoffs.
“Even if playoffs is the way it is, we can still lose. If you lose two games you’re out.”
