Despite a strong second place finish in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League regular season standings the NAMLC Drillers of St. Albert (8-5) left provincials empty-handed. The Drillers were vying for top spot at the Alberta Lacrosse Association’s junior B ladies’ championship at Servus Credit Union Place.
The Drillers weren’t able to record a win in three round robin games and finally fell 3-1 to the Calgary Axemen Snipers in the bronze medal match-up Monday at Northstar Hyundai Arena. The Calgary Cardinals were crowned provincial champions while the South Edmonton Warriors picked up silver.
In their first provincials game on Saturday, the Drillers tallied a 12-8 loss to the South Edmonton Warriors and came up short that night against the Calgary Axemen Snipers 11-9.
Head coach Hank Crough says the team did very well during the regular season, but heading into provincials with a short bench cost them.
“We were probably six or eight players short of our top roster coming into the playoffs,” Crough says. “Three due to injury, and then the rest with exams and holidays.”
Crough says it’s an annual challenge to maintain a full roster at playoff time.
“With the way the season goes, we run into holiday problems and exam problems at the end of the season so you lose a lot of players due to that,” he says.
Though the team didn’t celebrate any wins, the head coach says the ladies on the Drillers bench this weekend worked hard.
“They gave a great effort,” Crough says. “The Cardinals’ game that we played, it was the closest game the Cardinals had throughout the tournament. The spread on that was only three goals and the other ones were losses that we could have made-up. One more person would have made a big difference.”
The top ranked Calgary Cardinals (9-3) bested the Drillers by a score of 11-9 and went undefeated in the round robin.
Crough has been bench boss for the Drillers for a few years and says that the team is looking positive for the 2014 season.
“We’ll have another influx of three or four players that will make a difference, plus most of our players will be returning next year, so it looks pretty good,” says Crough.
After the bronze medal game, the Drillers’ Shayla Michayla was awarded top scorer for the Alberta Lacrosse Association’s junior B ladies. The 16-year-old had 19 goals and 20 assists in 12 games during the regular season.