It was a tough ending to a great year.
The Okotoks Icemen fell to the Medicine Hat Sun Devils in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League’s Alberta Tier III Provincials bronze medal game on July 17 at the Bob Snodgrass Recreation Complex in High River.
The Icemen lost three of four games in the round-robin portion of the tournament before bowing out in the bronze medal game on Sunday.
“We played a lot of ball this weekend and they were pretty beat up,” Okotoks coach Tyler Smith said.
After falling behind 4-1 in the first period of the bronze medal game, the Icemen mounted a ferocious comeback and tied the game at 5-5.
However, they could not mount more of a push falling to the second-seeded Sun Devils 9-5.
“We started out real slow,” Smith explained, adding they managed to take momentum back before ultimately losing the match.
Having, at one point, played 15 hours of lacrosse over a span of a day and a half, the beat-up Icemen gave everything they had over the weekend tournament.
Goaltender Mitchell Fawcett earned player of the game honours for his several key stops in the bronze medal match.
Fawcett said, results aside, he was pleased with how he and his teammates performed at the provincials.
“We gave it our all,” he said. “No regrets now.”
After so many games in such a short span, the Icemen were completely spent by the time the final whistle blew on Sunday.
“It just drained us,” Fawcett said. “We pretty much laid out everything we had.”
The Icemen came into the tournament as the third-seed after finishing with an 11-3 record in the Jr. B Tier III Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League.
The Icemen won their opening game over the Calgary Wranglers 13-11 on Friday before falling to Medicine Hat 12-9.
Following a 13-12 overtime loss to the Crowsnest Pass Ravens on Saturday, the Icemen then fell to the High River Heat 18-5 in the evening.
The Heat went on to claim the provincial title with a victory over the Ravens on Sunday afternoon in front of their home crowd.
Despite finishing out of the medals, Smith said he had a lot to be proud of with this year’s edition of the Icemen.
“We were really hoping to come away with something this weekend but we were really short benched. I’m more proud of the moral victory that we got with these boys,” he said.
After beginning the season with a lack of cohesiveness, Smith made it clear to his team they had to come together in order to succeed.
“We told them ‘You guys can be mortal enemies but once you get in that (locker) room, you’re brothers. Each person has to have each other’s back,’” he recalled.
The Icemen heeded their coach’s words and put together a solid campaign.
It was the visible improvement in each individual player that made the season worthwhile, Smith observed.
“We had a lot of kids that, at the beginning of the year, they seemed like liabilities,” he said. “Right now, I bet just about every single one of them could step up and be a huge role player at the next level (Tier II).”
