Almost nothing at all went according to plan for Yorkton's lacrosse team when they took to the road to Moose Jaw to compete in the 2011 Provincials of Junior Lacrosse, along with five other teams.
They scored a ton of goals unfortunately, did not win anything.
Although it got off to a bad start right away, coach Joe Choptuik said all was not lost despite a setback against a team he said they should have been able to beat.
"We were winning for most of the game," he said of a 9-7 loss to the Regina Riot. Choptuik said Regina went on to the finals in the Tier I side, which turned out to be Regina's only loss.
The teams all gathered in Moose Jaw to decide the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League's best team of 2011.
As it turned out Yorkton went 0-2 following back-to-back losses against the Riot and then a heartbreaking mishap against the Estevan Big Dogs, which Choptuik said needed overtime to determine the winner.
Yorkton hadn't lost to Estevan in close to three years nor had they ever allowed as many goals as they did in the playoff game against Estevan, who won the game 13-12. Choptuik told Yorkton This Week that the game also required overtime to settle.
Yorkton appeared to have scored the winning goal in the last second of the third period; however officials disallowed the would-be winner when they decided the goal scorer did not beat the time clock, which ran out, Choptuik said.
The Bulldog coach said it was tough to lose the first game against Regina. "I wasn't extremely disappointed. (If we had to lose a game) "that would have been the game to lose," he said. The Regina loss meant Yorkton was moved into Tier II play which set them up with the Big Dogs, he said.
"It was a good game," he said of the Regina loss. He said Yorkton "fell asleep in the final eight minutes" and that would be what contributed to the loss, he said.
"They all played well," he said of his players. "They expected to do better."
Choptuik said he wasn't worried about his players being overconfident; the team finished the highest in the PGLL standings then they have in the past three-plus years and they went into provincials almost expecting a much higher finish. "They didn't give it their all."
As for the second loss vs. Estevan, Choptuik said his team scored at the buzzer but was waived off due to time running out.
We "didn't argue it" he said. "They played better," he said of Estevan's team. "Our guys thought they would win. It was disappointing for a lot of the players. As for the remaining teams in the tournament, Choptuik said the Saskatoon Smash finished in top spot as they won the Tier I championship, beating the Riot. They also knocked off Estevan.
Despite the bad results from the playoff rounds, the Yorkton coach said it was a good season and with the losses of only two players due to age, the team should be just as tough to play against as it proved to be during the season this year. Yorkton finished with a respectable 4-4-2 record which put them into third place in the PGLL final standings. Only Kevin Galli and Brendon Turberfield leave the Juniors due to age regulations.
-Submitted
