You need faith to snare something valuable from the lion’s den.
Three Okotoks Midget Hawks will try to grab a medal with Team Alberta at the National Lacrosse Midget championships in the heartland of Canada’s summer national game, Whitby, Ontario.
“It is going to be difficult but I have faith that we can beat B.C. and Ontario,” said Luke Welton, one of three Okotoks Midget Hawks selected for Team Alberta for the championships. “You just have to be hopeful and believe in your system.”
Welton will join Hawks teammates Sean Garlock and goalie Brendyn Kendall at the National Midget Lacrosse championships in Whitby, July 31 to Aug. 6.
Ontario, B.C. and Iroquois Nation have had a stranglehold on the national championships in previous years.
Welton said a medal would be an ideal way to end his Midget career.
“This is my last year of Midget and I won’t have a chance to do this again,” said Welton, a Grade 11 student at HTA. “I trained really hard and this was my goal this year.”
The Hawks finished first in the Calgary District Lacrosse Association regular season, but finished fourth in the playoff tournament.
Welton got over a disappointing playoff with a strong showing at Team Alberta tryout.
“I got in my groove and I started playing my game,” Welton said. “I got confident and started playing my game.”
He defines his game as hard-hitting and being able to put the ball in the net now and then.
Welton will have a letter on his chest for Team Alberta as he was selected assistant captain.
“My role on Team Alberta will be a strong physical role and somebody who can play both ends of the floor successfully,” he said. “I’m not the best scorer and there are some guys who have some serious talent, but I can bring that physical presence that we need.”
Kendall, who lives in High River, will see action in net for Team Alberta. He had a strong camp during tryouts.
“There were six (goalies) from Alberta to start off and at the end, one of the evaluators said I was the no. 1 goalie,” said Kendall, a student at Foothills Comp. “You just have to stop the ball when it comes at you.”
He will do some homework while in Whitby.
“The one thing I have to worry about knowing who the best players on the other team are,” said the six-foot-two, 175-pound goalie. “Defence is a team effort, but ultimately it is up to me to stop the shot.
“Ontario is the best province and I definitely want to see them play and know how they play.”
Garlock is one of three players on Team Alberta to go to nationals for the second season.
“It was lots of fun — just being able to play at that level and high intensity, I loved it,” he said. “I am more ready this year to go down there.”
He’s hoping for improvement on the team’s fifth-place finish in 2015.
“Ontario, B.C. and Iroquois are always hard to beat,” Garlock said. “B.C. and Iroquois if we play are system, we have a chance.
“Ontario, just try to hold them off, don’t let them get too many and we will see what happens.”
Peewees team up
Better together than apart.
A pair of Okotoks lacrosse players will be teammates for Team Alberta for the Peewee National Lacrosse championship in Whitby, Ont. July 31-Aug. 6.
Jayce Dievert, 11 of the Okotoks Raiders, and Kaden Chinski, 11, of the Okotoks Hawks were selected to Team Alberta after tryouts in Calgary and Ponoka earlier this summer.
Dievert, an MD of Foothills resident, was an offensive specialist with the Raiders, as well as their captain for much of the season.
“I thought trying out for Team Alberta would be a good experience because I got to play with different players,” he said. “At the second tryout in Ponoka I got more confidence because I made the first cut.”
Thanks to his healthy size at five-foot-ten, 130 pounds, Dievert will be more of a defensive specialist with Team Alberta.
Chinski was an offensive power with the Hawks as well as assistant captain.
Making Team Alberta caught him by surprise — thanks to a prank by his father.
“It was kind of funny because my dad kind of kind of scared me,” Chinski said with a smile. “He told me ‘I have some good news and some bad news. You didn’t get redshirted but you made the team.’
“Redshirts are the affiliates (one of three spares). I was really happy.”
He isn’t sure what his role will be with Team Alberta.
“I’m just going to try my hardest and just represent Alberta well,” Chinksi said.
The team to beat will be Ontario, which has won the championship the last few years.
“Ontario always comes in first and then B.C.,” Chinski said. “But last year Alberta beat B.C. in the round-robin.”
Dievert, agreed, adding while it will be tough for Alberta to win a medal “anything is possible.”
For more information about the national tournaments go to www.lacrosse.ca
