A fight to the finish summed up and ended the Estevan Voltz peewee lacrosse team’s season.
The Voltz lost 4-3 in overtime to the Regina Rush on Sunday at the Lumsden Community Sports Centre in the bronze-medal game of the Saskatchewan Lacrosse finals, which brought eight peewee teams from across the province together for the chance to be crowned Saskatchewan champion.
“It’s just we had one bad period and the coaches talked to the kids there after the second and got them pumped up and we ended up coming back to tie it at three and then we brought it into overtime,” said Dallas Hall, head coach of the Voltz. “They were on a different overtime (from league play), a 10-minute overtime, and you have to play the full length. They snuck one by Cole (Blondeau) there and we couldn’t come back from that one. Lots of chances in that overtime, but they just held us off.”
The Voltz began the tournament with a 5-2 win over the Saskatoon Gaels on Friday afternoon before they defeated the Rush, a Queen City Minor Box Lacrosse League (QCMBL) rival, 6-4 later that evening. The next morning the Voltz faced off against another QCMBL opponent in the Moose Jaw Mustangs beating them 6-4 and earning a spot in the final four.
The club took on the Prince Albert Predators, the eventual Saskatchewan Lacrosse champion, next losing 4-2. That set them up for the bronze-medal matchup against the Rush.
“We come in as underdogs for these types of things,” said Hall, noting assistant coaches Rhett Handley and Tianna Sieben helped the team immensely since coming on board in the last few weeks. “We definitely came in there as underdogs and we turned a lot of heads, so we can’t complain the way the weekend went. Out of eight teams, that put us in fourth losing that bronze.”
Hall said a lot of their success at the tournament was thanks to the play of their goaltender, Blondeau, and top scorer Kaden Chrest, who both earned provincial all-star honours for their efforts. He said coming this far in their first season of QCMBL play is incredible with the great showing at the provincial championships being a fantastic ending.
“It was good,” he said. “Just getting into that league and, I don’t know how to put it, we just matched up against a lot of teams. Nobody expected us to pull any wins off and we ended up fourth in the league.”
