Venom lacrosse made tremendous strides this season

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

Strathmore Lacrosse Club saw a tremendous amount of improvement and support throughout the different levels of teams, and a couple of the teams having deep runs into the playoffs bodes well for the sport for the future.
“We had growth at the younger levels (which is where we need to grow),” said Vice President Scott Fargey.
“And (we) had lots of parents who were willing to step up and learn the game and volunteer.”
A positive sign in the right direction for the club was the enthusiasm the girls teams showed for the game and how they wanted to learn the game over the course of the season.
“I think the girls were really enthusiastic about learning the game and were willing to compete even though they were not winning a lot of games,” said Fargey.
Fargey said that moving forward this will provide girls some good growth opportunities in lacrosse and he is hopeful to expand the team beyond the bantam and midget levels pending the number of players that come out.
“It strictly comes down to numbers,” said Fargey.
“If there are enough girls, we would love to expand. As of right now we are just scrounging together enough to put together a team at the bantam and midget level.”
There were a couple of teams that saw success throughout the season, and for those teams that meant winning big tournaments or coming close to making an appearance in the finals.
“We had both peewee ‘B’ teams go with 11-1 records,” said Fargey.
“One team lost out in the city semi-finals and then our combined peewee team won the Canada Day tournament, which is one of the largest box lacrosse tournaments in North America. Our bantam ‘B’ team went 10-2 and were the city champions, they went to the Provincials and battled hard but struggled a bit in Grande Prairie.”
The players were not the only success stories of the season, as coaches came a long way with the help of ELEV8 Lacrosse and National Lacrosse League Players (NLL) Geoff and Bobby Snider who assisted with their coaching development.
“They ran practices for all of our teams which was great for the coaches and players as they all got to spend a private practice with NLL players,” said Fargey.
“We are hoping that this will bring us all up to the next level to be able to educate our coaches and players on the proper way of the game.”
He added the sheer growth numbers gives the club the encouragement that they can continue to grow from the younger age categories and build for years to come.