With the ice out, Badlands Lacrosse is in full stride at the Memorial Arena and the valley’s five teams already have a few games in.
Ramada Hotel Midget Raptors
“We’ve been facing benches of 17 and 16, but there’s no doubt the boys could be going into the finals with the way they’re playing,” said head coach Tim Grendron of the team’s roster of only 10 players. “We have small numbers and big hearts. It’s taken its toll on them, but they’re not ready to give up.”
The Midget Raptors are fresh off a successful weekend having beat Olds Saturday 9-3, and followed with a tie against Red Deer 4-4 at home Sunday.
“We’re starting off a good year,” said Grendron.
Dan’s Oilfield Novice Raptors
Losing 7-6 Saturday against the Lakoka (Lacombe/Ponoka) team Saturday after nearly tieing up the game with minutes left in the third, coach Ren Dumaine said the team played strong despite taking too many penalties.
They came home to the Memorial Arena Sunday, hosting the Blackfalds team, but lost 7-1. They took seven penalties, six for high sticking.
“We didn’t wake up until the third period, but once we did we were outplaying them,” said Dumaine.
They won their first regular season game 4-3 against the Red Deer Chiefs on April 23.
The Novice Raptors only have 9 players on their roster, and are looking for more players to step up.
“It’s going to be hard – it’s all running,” said Dumaine. “We only have two players
who have played before, the
rest are new, so there’s a little bit of a challenge there.”
They’ll play games this weekend, although a schedule was not immediately provided to The Mail.
Sports Room Source for Sports PeeweeRaptors
With a group of new players this year, the Sports Room Raptors have a challenge in front of them to change the season around, head coach Paul Richard said.
“We’ll make progress – it’s never about winning or losing any ways,” said Richard. “It’ll be a good learning experience.”
They lost all three of the games played before the weekend, and could not be reached for comment for this weekend’s game results. They played two games in Innisfail Saturday and one at home on Sunday.
They’re boasting one of the bigger rosters in the Badlands league at 13 players.
The Bantam team’s staff could not be reached for contact
