Venom finding stride down the stretch

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Strathmore Venom junior B lacrosse team is sitting comfortably in a playoff spot with only six games remaining in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League’s regular season.
Head coach Mike Olver has been quite pleased with the team’s play in the last five games, including a 13-9 win over the Lacoka Locos on June 14 at the Strathmore Family Centre.
“Our better players played really well today and some of the players that don’t get as much time were out there and they played real well too,” said Olver. “Our goaltending was fantastic today, it all starts in our end and we were real strong defensively. We have plenty of goal scorers, I’m not worried about the goal scoring, it’s sometimes in our own end.”
He was impressed with the fact that the Venom’s defense was able to hold a couple of the Locos big guns to one goal.
“The one guy, that’s very good, and he got one goal today, we did what we wanted to against him,” said Olver.
The reason the Venom were able to keep up to them was because of their speed.
Olver added the key to success for the boys is to play at even strength or by having the man advantage and having a strong penalty kill.
“Our penalty killing has been phenomenal the last four or five games,” said Olver.
“One of my assistant coaches, he made a change on the PK and it’s awesome. So that’s been a great thing for our team, that’s helped starting to win more games.”
The team’s health has been a strength for most of the season and that is why there have been a consistent number of players in the line-up.
“I’ve had 18 runners almost every game,” said Olver. “That’s a strong point for us because we don’t get as tired.”