Local junior and senior lacrosse players will be playing for different cities in the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League (PGLL) this season.
For the second straight year, the Estevan junior Big Dogs lacrosse team will not field a squad in the PGLL. Eligible players from this area will instead compete with the Moose Jaw Mustangs junior lacrosse team.
The Estevan Harris Oilfield Impact senior lacrosse team will play in the PGLL, but under new leadership and a very different lineup. In an effort to further grow the sport, Impact general manager Braydon Krahn said the team and new head coach Colin Fogarty will be holding open tryouts over their first few practices and anyone interested in playing is welcome to join.
“We’re just going to be getting back into the flow of things,” said Krahn, noting the team will practise on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. at the Bienfait Memorial Arena before their regular season begins the last weekend in April with an away game versus the Saskatoon Brewers. “We have a lot of new people coming in this year, so our first (practices are) going to be a lot of fundamentals.”
Krahn said athletes new to the Impact, which include players born in 1994 and older, or new to the sport are invited to try out. He said lacrosse is great for providing conditioning help in athletes as well as hand-eye coordination and anyone looking to gain an edge in their fitness level will benefit from taking up Canada’s game.
Jody Harris, co-president of Estevan Minor Box Lacrosse (EMBL), said there are six local athletes signed up to play junior lacrosse and these kids will be suiting up for the Mustangs this season. She said they need 20 to 25 players to field a team, so the decision was made to strengthen Moose Jaw’s club, which also didn’t have a junior squad in 2015, in an effort to give the kids a place to play.
Krahn said 2016 will be a growing year for the Impact considering all the new faces on the coaching staff and the roster. He said they do have some veteran players to help the rookies along, but the restructuring of the club is hoped to provide improved results on years past.
“We’re going to have a new coach this year and hopefully the guys can rally around that,” said Krahn. “We have plenty of individual skill, but we’re just going to focus on getting the team to synergize together and that is hopefully going to be enough for us.”
