It was a memorable year for lacrosse in Estevan.
The bantam Voltz team went undefeated in league play and the bantam, peewee and atom Voltz teams hosted provincials in the summer. The Estevan Minor Box Lacrosse Association capped the year by handing out its second annual awards Sunday afternoon.
Mark Tribiger won the Harris Oilfield volunteer of the year, Kelsey Magnien won the TS&M female player of the year, Chase Foord won the TS&M male player of the year and Jase Malaryk won the Fast Trucking official of the year. Dion Wagstaff was named the JL’s Bike & Skate coach of the year.
Tribiger answered the call for coaches and volunteers for the younger group and won the award.
“My daughter plays mini-tykes and I guess I was doing it because I’m a dad,” said Tribiger. “She started playing lacrosse and they needed coaches. I’m involved with a lot of sports, like minor football. I’ve played lacrosse my whole life and it’s something new and the community was looking for coaches.”
Tribiger’s daughter had friends that were in lacrosse, which sparked her interest.
“She thought it would be a fun thing to do and she likes sports like I do.”
It’s that kind of interest that has helped move lacrosse into getting good numbers of enrolments, especially for the younger age groups.
“Lacrosse is growing in this community and we’re seeing a lot more kids,” said Estevan lacrosse president Marc Seemann. “We had a great bantam team and we had a great peewee team…
“All our other teams came out and maybe they weren’t the top but they were right up there.”
Looking back at the year for the organization they saw a lot of success on and off the court, including having enough players to field two novice teams this year.
“It’s not even the association, it’s all the kids,” said Seeman. “Once you have a kid talking about lacrosse or even having a stick in their hands just around the community, people start wondering, hey I used to play that game and maybe I should get back into it. All the kids and all the parents that are in our association know how to get ahold of us.
“We just let their kids do their thing and hopefully they bring in all their excitement into the games.”
Foord had a great year on the court, both with the local peewee Voltz team and Team Sask.
“It’s really exciting and I worked really hard for it,” said Foord. “We had a good season.”
Foord said the fun aspect of the game was a highlight for him.
“When we got to score, everybody was always working hard,” he said.
Hosting provincials this year meant extra practices but Foord didn’t mind.
“I think we all just treated it like another game,” he said. “We just worked hard and kept going.”
Lucas Smyth won the Tyson Juhlke Memorial Award for dedication, determination and love of the game and Leighton Mus won the Dustin Pratt ‘Hard Charger’ Memorial Award.
The president’s award went to the 2018 bantam Voltz team for the season they had.
