Local athlete Rhett Handley expects his Saskatchewan SWAT junior B tier 1 lacrosse team to win a national championship this Sunday at the 2015 Founders' Cup Tournament in Calgary.
The SWAT will have to best six of the top junior B lacrosse teams in the country over the course of five days at the Max Bell Centre to get a shot at the Cup. They'll be relying on Handley, who led the SWAT to their first Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) title earlier this month with a playoff MVP performance, and fellow local player Ty Currie to help accomplish that goal.
“We want to come out with the win,” said Handley, who scored six goals and recorded 17 points in five RMLL playoff games with the SWAT. “We've been practising really hard since we won. We haven't slowed down at all, so we're hoping to come out on top. It'll be tough, but we have the team to do it.”
This will be Handley's fourth appearance at a Founders' Cup Tournament. He previously competed for the Cup in 2014 and 2013 as a call-up with the SWAT, who won the B side gold medal in Halifax last year, and in 2011 as a member of the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League (PGLL) all-star team.
Handley said the tournament showcases “high speed, fast pitch” lacrosse action, but his team is ready for anything after convincingly winning their league this season. The SWAT, who recorded 13 wins and a tie in 18 regular season games, earned the RMLL title with a 6-2 loss to the Calgary Chill before bouncing back for a 10-2 victory over the Manitoba Blizzard and a 13-5 win over the Red Deer Rampage Aug. 1 in playoff action to book their ticket in the final. The SWAT would become the first non-Alberta team to win the league Aug. 3 with a 13-8 victory over the Manitoba Blizzard at St. Albert's Akinsdale Arena.
“Before that game even started we knew we were going to win,” said Handley. “We were hungry for it and in warm ups you could tell everybody was spot on. The defence played absolutely phenomenal throughout the entire game, throughout the whole playoffs actually. And the offence was burying their chances. That's what it takes to win.”
Handley, who scored 34 goals and assisted on another 66 in his rookie year, credits the SWAT coaching staff led by head coach Casey Guerin with their success this year by setting them up with strong game plans and pushing them whenever it was needed. He said it was the same leading up to national championships and they'll try their best to execute the coaches' plan again this week.
“We just ran two (practices) a days this past weekend just to prepare for multiple games in a day at Founders,” he said. “We kept going hard. The intensity is actually much higher before we won the championship, so that is always a bonus going in to the national championship.”
