Three local broomball players played with the Odessa Bandits broomball team during the recent 2015 Juvenile National Championships in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.
The players were Ryan Seipp, Riley Meshke and William Chamney, and all three earned a bronze medal in the B-side of the tournament, with the Bandits.
In the juvenile boys division, there were eight teams split into two pools.
In the Bandits’ first game of the tournament they were matched up against Team Manitoba and they fell 3-2 in overtime.
The Blitz earned their first win of the tournament by defeating the Quebec Blitz Temiscouata 2-1 in overtime.
Odessa’s next game was in a crossover between the two pools and they lost 4-2 to Palmerston Posse, an Ontario team. After that game they played the other Quebec team, the As St-Coeur-de-Marie, and despite forcing overtime, they lost 3-2.
After the Bandits loss 1-0 to the Valley Gamblers they competed in the B-side medal round.
In the semifinals of that round, they dropped a 3-0 decision to the Windsor Devils, but defeated the Bruno Axemen 2-0 in the bronze medal game.
Seipp said throughout the tournament the team had a good time.
“It was a lot of fun, we had lots of fun with the team and it was a really good experience,” he said.
Seipp said the Bandits advanced to nationals by winning provincials and he only joined the team just for this tournament.
“They were impressed with how I played (with the Estevan team), so they picked me up from Estevan to go play with them (at nationals),” he said.
Seipp also added that they could have played better in some game but overall, it was a good experience.
“There were some games where we started off slow and we could have had better starts, but I was really impressed with the weekend,” Seipp said. “We played really well together for only having a few practices for some of the guys ... and we had a lot of good games.
