A lot of things went well for the Yorkton lacrosse team this past season, but when the provincial championships rolled around this past weekend, none of those good things carried over into the 'real' season.
In Prairie Gold Lacrosse League playoffs, games come down to one weekend. A win in the first game puts you into Tier I, while a loss and you wind up playing for the Tier II championship.
In last year's playoff, Yorkton was denied a three-peat for the Tier II title. Two years ago, they won it. Three years ago they won it. This year they weren't even close.
For a team that played so well during the course of this year's regular season, expectations were quite high, says head coach Joe Choptuik. This year, Yorkton's team finished right at .500 with 10 points in the PGLL standings. They wrapped up with 4-4-2 on their final record. That's quite an improvement from the past three seasons which they couldn't reach four wins in eight tries and could barely manage to score more than half the time.
This season they reached double-digit scores in almost every game they played and even scored a goal in a game against Regina that ended up getting credited to Regina. However when they reached the playoffs, they could not pull off the wins which seemed to come much easier in each of the past few seasons. They got beat up during the season, but laid down the beating in the playoffs en route to winning two Tier II championships. In the third season, last season, they were denied a three-peat by the Saskatoon Steelers.
They finished with two of their scorers finishing in the top five scorers in the PGLL. Brendon Turberfield and Justin Genaille both proved to be a handful during the season, lighting up the opposition almost every night they played. The two tied with 34 points each, tied for third place.
Turberfield, whom coach Choptuik said graduates from lacrosse and won't be eligible to compete next summer, had 21 goals and supplied 13 assists. It was a similar story for Genaille who potted 15 goals and 19 assists.
Thanks to the contributions of the aforementioned, as well as most of the rest of the team, coach Choptuik said it was probably one of the best records for the Junior team in Yorkton.
At the provincial playoffs this past weekend held in Moose Jaw, Yorkton played the Regina Riot and Estevan Big Dogs. Choptuik said the team should have been able to win both games. Both were decided by two goals or less, and one needed overtime to determine its winner. Regina won 9-7, after Yorkton "fell asleep" in the last period and gave up their chance to play in Tier I.
Against Estevan, the two teams combined for 25 goals and it needed overtime to settle after a Yorkton goal in the final few seconds was waived off by the officials, said Choptuik. Yorkton hadn't lost a game to Estevan in close to three years worth of games and they picked a bad time to finally have that streak snapped.
Choptuik said he was happy with the way the regular season ended. Yorkton won four games, lost four games and tied two games. They ended the season on a three-game winning streak and had a full line up going into Moose Jaw unfortunately, they could not continue with the good luck. He added that the team was idle for three weeks leading up to the provincials and that did not help either, he said.
Yorkton played well enough and was a legitimate contender for a Tier I win, but for the first time in four years, they went into the playoff round a little too confident, Choptuik admitted.
