The Westlock Junior Rock’s championship hopes are alive.
The squad will play in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League Tier II North Conference semifinals after sweeping the Vermilion Roar June 25-26 in a best-of-three series in Vermilion.
In Game 1 on Saturday night the Rock notched a 7-6 victory and followed it up with a 10-5 win in Game 2 Sunday.
“It’s a good momentum thing for us. Vermilion was a really good team, it was tight through both of these games,” said coach Mike Ivey.
“When we won yesterday we had to get into the mindset that it really didn’t mean anything yet. It’s really difficult to eliminate a team when they have their backs against the wall. We knew we had to close them out.”
The Rock now move on to play the league’s best team, the Sherwood Park Titans, who the Rock have yet to defeat this year.
“They were all tight games that could have gone either way,” Ivey said. “It’s been a good rivalry and we’d sure love to knock them off.”
The Rock will look to take advantage of an over rested Titans squad what have been idle since June 19 after a first-round bye.
“We’ve already experienced a playoff atmosphere right away and we know what it’s going to take,” Ivey said.
“Hopefully we can jump on them right away and catch them off guard.”
It was a challenging regular season for the Rock who posted a 7-7 record, and enter the playoffs as the dark horse, but Ivey assured the team’s best is yet to come.
“In the standings, we’d be considered an underdog, but we knew we can beat everybody in this league,” Ivey said.
“I think a few teams are aware that they haven’t seen the real Westlock Rock in a while.
“When we get rolling we can’t be stopped.”
