With a 9-5 home-court win over the High River Heat on July 13, the Olds junior B Stingers finished off the regular season in first place in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League.And thanks to their first-place 12-3-0 record, the Stingers have earned a bye in the league playoff tournament taking place in Olds from July 18 to 20.“This is huge. It's the first time ever in Olds junior lacrosse that we finished the league in first place,” said Stingers head coach Gary Gaudette. “It's huge for the guys, for the town, for everything. The guys are just pumped. They just can't wait for next week.“After coming off a couple of good wins that we desperately needed from this weekend, they're ready to go.”After losing to High River twice this season, the Stingers came into their final regular season matchup in second place to the Heat and the Olds players knew they had to get on the board first against their division rivals.The Stingers managed to draw first blood at 18:41 in the first period thanks to a goal from Logan Niemeyer and Olds' captain, Brent Beukeboom, who earned an assist on the goal, said scoring that all-important first point was the key to keeping the game's momentum in Olds' favour.“Last two games we played these guys, they scored first,” he said. “The last game, they came out, we had a really good start but they got the first goal and so I think it was big we got the first one this time.”Olds tallied another goal at 13:52 and again at 10:42 on the power play to go up 3-0.It looked like the Heat would finish out the frame with no points on the board until the 2:55 mark when Dylan Hazelwood found the back of the Olds net at the tail end of a Stingers penalty.But the Stingers responded to regain a three-goal lead with 34.8 seconds left in the period when Dexter Hebert scored.After commanding the first frame, the wheels came off in the second for Olds.By the eight-minute mark, High River had tied the game 4-4 with one of the goals coming on the power play.The Stingers were struggling with penalties and Olds' Jagger Emerson was ejected from the game for going to the box one-too-many times.“We definitely have to do something about that,” Gaudette said. “Penalties kill us. As you can see, in the second period we fell apart because we were penalty-ridden. There's going to be a talk.”Olds, however, was too stubborn to allow the Heat a go-ahead goal and the Stingers reassumed the lead late in the second period with goals from Colby Freeborn and Everest Hughes.With the score 6-4, High River yanked goaltender Tyler Coate and replaced him with Mitchell Fawcett.At the beginning of the third period, High River came within one goal of tying the game again with a power-play goal from Devon Caithcart.That point, however, would be the Heat's last of the regular season.The Stingers kept High River at bay for the rest of the period and tallied another three goals before the final buzzer.Beukeboom said the win not only gives Olds a strong position in the playoffs, it also takes a bite out of the Heat's confidence going into the tournament.“Not only do we get the bye, being the first-place seed, going into the playoffs there's a really good chance we'll play (High River) in the final,” he said. “We got the doubt in their heads and that's a lot of what it is in sport.”Gaudette said his team's “tightened” defence was key to the win and with the Stingers' offence and defence working well, especially in the last few games of the regular season, Olds will be the team to beat in the playoffs.The Stingers won their last regular season road game 15-8 in Lethbridge against the Barracudas on July 12.And they won their penultimate regular season home game 16-5 victory over the Calgary Axemen-Mavericks on July 8 at the Olds Sports Complex.Beukeboom and Hebert led the Stingers, each tallying four goals and one assist during the game.Jordan Waddell chipped in with a five-point night of his own, scoring a goal and doling out four assists.Despite a barrage of shots and second-chances off rebounds, the Stingers were held off the board for more than half of the first period until Hebert's point shot on the power play found the back of the Calgary net.“It was a little sloppy at first. It took us about 12 minutes to get into the game, get our first goal,” said Stingers assistant coach Andy Sweetman. “We thought we'd jump on them early but it didn't happen but they came on strong. Our guys did a good job and in the end, got what we wanted, the result was a win.”The Axemen were smothered by the Stingers defence, failing to connect on passes and limited to perimeter shots.Throughout the game, Calgary turned the ball over while trying to advance out of its own zone.It was the kind of play that Sweetman was happy to see from his team.“They're finally figuring out how to play defence, which is kind of nice to get the sticks in the lane and pushing them and getting in guys' faces so it makes it tough for them to see where their own players are,” he said. “It's tough for them to catch passes or even pass the ball to start with.”The playoff tournament begins on July 18 at 4:30 p.m. at the Olds Sports Complex with the league's fourth-place team, the Barracudas, playing the fifth-place team, the Medicine Hat Sun Devils.The Stingers take to the court on July 19 at 1:30 p.m. to play the winner of that game.The gold medal game takes place on July 20 on the sports complex's main floor at 3 p.m. with the bronze medal game on the main floor at 11:30 [email protected]@olds.greatwest.ca
