A young team with a lot of players who had never held a lacrosse stick before is now ready to compete for provincial glory.
Westlock’s novice Rock lacrosse team, made up of players from Westlock and Barrhead, earned their spot in the July 4-6 provincial tournament in Leduc with a silver-medal performance in the Greater Edmonton Lacrosse Council playoffs last week.
“We’re just really proud of them,” said Stacey Howse, Westlock Lacrosse Association president. “The kids worked hard. It was a young team and they grew from the beginning, when they weren’t really winning games, to go to provincials.”
For coach Pierre Ouimet, the provincial berth is simply icing on the cake of a season that started with absolutely no expectations.
In fact, he said if the Rock were to lose every game they play at provincials, it would still be a successful season just based on how far the players came. Of the 14 players on the roster, six were raw rookies.
“This was the first time they’ve ever played any lacrosse,” Ouimet said.
Despite how green the players were, they showed vast improvements as the season went on, which was evident in how they performed in their two tournament appearances.
At the Icebreaker tournament in St. Albert in late April, the team went 0-3-1 in its four games. But at the Jeremy Richardson Memorial Baggataway Tournament on June 6-8 in St. Albert, the result was vastly different.
“We won that tournament,” Ouimet said. “Winning that tournament was awesome. It boosted their confidence that they can do it.”
The confidence boost the team gained from winning the Baggataway tournament carried over into the GELC playoffs, where they went on a Cinderella run despite being the eighth seed.
They opened the playoffs against the top-seeded Wizards.
“On paper we shouldn’t have won even that first game, but we did.”
The score was 6-4 for the Rock.
Game 2 was a matchup with the fourth-ranked Crush, which again Ouimet said the Rock should have lost based on regular season results. Instead, the Rock walked off the floor 6-5 winners.
In their third game, against the second seed Blues N3, the Rock were defeated 6-2. However, since the GELC playoffs are a double knockout tournament, a team isn’t eliminated until they’ve lost twice, so the Rock weren’t finished yet.
Their fourth game was perhaps the most meaningful, as the winner would be guaranteed a spot at provincials. Up against the third-seeded Blues N2, a team Ouimet said “we have no business beating,” the Rock once again defied prognosticators and came away 6-5 winners.
That win moved the Rock into the championship game against the Blues N3. Despite leading halfway through the game, the Rock were unable to complete their Cinderella run, losing 6-4 to finish as silver medallists.
