The Heat proved they were the team to beat.
The Lakeland Heat Cold Lake novice and bantam teams went undefeated at their provincial tournaments in Calgary on July 14.
The bantam team won gold against Lethbridge 8-5, and the novice team beat the St. Albert Rams 13-5.
This is the first provincial gold for the novice team, and head coach Bruce Bordeleau plans to keep them together for future seasons.
“It’s definitely something we’d like to keep going,” he explained. “They grew up beside one another, and improve in the sport together.”
The novice provincial team was composed of players from all three Cold Lake teams, and participated in a Red Deer tournament to qualify for provincials.
Although the players didn’t practice as a group a lot, Bordeleau said they came together as easily and proved themselves as a team to be taken seriously.
“It could have been really hard to get the team to mesh well together, but they did really good.”
Player Charlie Hull agreed it was one of the elements that helped them make it to provincials.
“We had a good understanding and chemistry on the field with one another,” he said.
Playing alongside his friends is what got Hull interested in lacrosse, and continuing to grow in the sport has kept him coming back year after year.
To keep themselves ready for provincials during a three-week layover, the bantam Heat participated in scrimmages with the novice team.
“We did little half-hour scrimmages between the teams during practices,” explained head bantam coach, Michael Groves. “The little kids liked it because some played against their big brothers, and the bigger brothers got to play against their younger brothers.”
Groves had the bantam team focus on passing and working on their game plan throughout the season to improve on the field.
He said, “Lacrosse is totally dependent on everybody playing as a team.”
The bantams were a league team that played together all season. Groves noted that over the years he’s had the opportunity to coach each of the boys.
“I’ve been a coach for this age group since they were in tykes. It’s been nice to coach them all at one point throughout the years.”
Assistant captain Bennett Fry believes the relationships formed helped the team get to provincials, and that practices kept them focused on improving their skills as a team.
“We had a strong bond between most of us, and we went into provincials very confident,” he explained.
Over the weekend, Fry competed at the 2018 Alberta Summer Games with fellow bantam teammates Brett MacLeod, Castin Bibeau, and Karter Gale. Check back for the results for local athletes at the summer games.
