The St. Albert Miners are three wins away from their first senior B provincial championship since 2014, and the fourth in seven years, after sweeping the Edmonton Warriors in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League semifinals.
Marshall Just’s overtime goal in Sunday’s 7-6 decision at Bill Hunter Arena booked the Miners’ third consecutive trip to the provincial final.
The win was also the 18th in a row for the undefeated Miners, the host-team for the Presidents’ Cup national championship, Aug. 24 to Sept. 4 in Leduc.
The Miners also beat the Warriors 10-8 and 11-3 in Leduc to start the best-of-five series.
In league play the Miners (15-0-1) finished first and the Warriors (7-8-1) placed fourth.
The Miners will play the Rockyview Knights (11-3-2) of Airdrie or Calgary Mountaineers (8-6-2) in the best-of-five final. The Knights, who defeated the Miners in four games in last year’s final, and the Mountaineers were tied at one win apiece before Tuesday’s game in Calgary. The score was unavailable at press time.
In the league opener April 30 the Miners and Knights battled to a 7-7 draw in St. Albert and in the rematch the Miners won 13-9 June 11 in Airdrie.
Richard Lachlin was the top scorer against the Warriors in the playoffs with eight goals and 14 points and Dean Fairall ranked second with five goals and 13 points.
Keegan Bal led all scorers in the regular season with 70 points, including 26 goals in 13 games.
Lachlin scored a league-high 36 goals and ranked fourth in points with 62 in 15 games.
Erik Turner, a junior B Tier I product of the St. Albert Crude, finished fourth in league scoring with 63 points while netting 25 goals in 15 games with the Warriors.
Alicia Easthope of the Sandpiper Golf & Country Club will tee it up at the Canadian Junior Girls Championship, starting Tuesday at The Links at Penn Hills in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.
Easthope, 17, made Team Alberta for the event by placing fourth at the recent provincial junior championship at the Cottonwood Golf & Country Club in Dewinton.
Easthope carded rounds of 77, 80 and 74 for a 231 total to finish plus-18.
Kenna Hughes (minus-2 at 211), Katy Rutherford (plus-1 at 214) and Kehler Koss (plus-16 at 229) will join Easthope at junior nationals.
Last month the Bellerose Composite High School graduate won a spot on the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour provincial team for the International Team Challenge, Sept. 23 to 25 at Hunters Pointe Golf Club near Niagara Falls.
A ball hockey team of St. Albert players scored gold medals at the recent Western Challenge Cup in Maple Ridge, B.C.
The U13 provincial champions out-scored their opponents 31-7 while going undefeated in six games. Periods consisted of two 20-minutes of stop time play.
“The boys just played incredibly well that weekend,” said coach Rick Reiter.
Two of the wins were against the Surrey Scorpions, including the final.
“In the round robin we won 2-1. We out-played them but it was a good game, a spirited game,” Reiter said. “In the final we beat them 5-2 and for probably the whole first period it was only 2-1 or 3-1.”
The winning lineup of 17 players consisted of 13 from St. Albert.
“We actually formed the team in 06/07 when the boys were three and four years old and then over the years I just kept adding players and the 10 core players remained constant throughout the years,” said Reiter, who coached most of the players in hockey. “We just kept adding pieces to make a team. They’re very good hockey players and a lot of them are just buddies.”
This was the team’s fifth year of playing and winning provincials but the first time at westerns.
Reiter floated the idea about going to westerns with the parents and everybody was on board.
“I was surprised by the interest so we went,” he said. “Most of the families combined it as a holiday.”
Visit www.stalbertgazette.com to view the team picture.
Last year’s Baseball Alberta midget AAA Tier I finalists are in Okotoks this weekend for provincials.
The St. Albert Cardinals are in pool B with games against the Parkland Twins at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday they play SEEBA #1 at 9 a.m. and East Central Bulls at 3 p.m.
Pool A consists of Okotoks Dawgs Red, Calgary Rockies, Calgary Dino’s Black and Sherwood Park Athletics.
If there are no tiebreakers, Sunday’s semifinals are 9 a.m. and noon and the final is 3 p.m.
The winner advances to the U18 Baseball Canada championship, Aug. 18 to 22 in Sherbrooke, Que., and the runner-up competes at westerns, Aug. 12 to 14 in Sherwood Park.
Visit www.baseballalberta.com or the Cardinals’ team website at www.stalbertbaseball.com for the schedule and results.
In the Norwest league to determine the provincial qualifiers, the top eight finishers were Dawgs Red (33-5), Parkland (28-6), SEEBA #1 (24-7), Rockies (25-14), Cardinals (22-15), Dino’s Black (17-12), Athletics (18-16) and Bulls (18-16).
The Cardinals, last year’s silver medallists at westerns, are 30-24-2 overall going into provincials.
