Marcus Rea of the Westlock Junior ‘B’ Rock handles the ball while breaking into the Sherwood Park Titans’ zone during a loss at the Rotary Spirit Centre June 22. The Rock finished off their Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League schedule with a 4-11-0 record.
The Westlock Junior ‘B’ Rock left the arena with their heads held high last weekend after completing a rebuild season in their return to the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League.
An 11-5 loss to the Parkland Posse at the Rotary Spirit Centre June 23 marked the end of the Rock’s 4-11 season. A loss to the division-leading Sherwood Park Titans the day before started the Rock’s final home stand off on a sour note, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
“We were short guys, we’ve had a short bench for the last few weeks ... We’re fighting injuries and stuff. When you get to the end of the season stuff kind of happens. You just have to find guys and make it work, so that’s kind of what we’ve been doing,” said coach Kyle Schram.
Despite their record, Schram said he was proud of what the team accomplished in their return to the league.
“I think we reached our goal, we established ourselves, we won some games and the main thing was to get these boys on the floor playing lacrosse and that’s what we did,” he said.
Schram said he is unsure if he’ll be back to coach next year.
“We’ll see what the wife says, but obviously I’m here for a reason. I love to do it and be with the boys and help out as much as I can,” he said.
With only three graduating players leaving the team because of age, the core next year will be much the same. Schram also expects about 10 midget players to make their way to the club.
“We’ll have more players to play next year. We’ll have a better system in place. It always takes a few years to establish yourselves. We’re just happy to play lacrosse really,” said Schram.
Jeffery Fagnan is one of the players leaving the Rock and agrees that the future looks bright. He chalks this year’s results up to growing pains and expects improvement over the coming years.
“We held it together. We had some ups and we had some downs. We got to win a few and we grew as a team a lot,” he said.
Bonding as a team and learning to communicate with each other was a big aspect of the year for the Rock, said Fagnan.
“We started off with a lot of guys that didn’t know each other and then on the bench as the year went on it was all high fives and cheering for each other.”
