Vets Peewee team qualifies for provincial finals

August 20, 2014 · 0 Comments

After a stellar season that saw battles with much larger centres, the Shelburne Vets Peewee team has qualified for the Final Six Provincial A Lacrosse finals to be held at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre in Oakville.
After a grueling schedule of league and tournament play, the Vets were ranked among the top 16 teams in Ontario and won a berth in the final qualifier tournament that took place over two weekends in Whitby.
The team is led by head coach Rusty Kruger, assistants Brent Millsap and Jamie Doig, and trainers Ron Webster and Marco DeMichelle.
“To get to the level we want to be at – which is ‘A’ level – the highest level in Ontario, we played in ‘A’ tournaments all summer,” Explained assistant coach Millsap. “In the qualifier, teams are put into two pools of eight and over two weekends you play a round robin – you play everybody. We played seven games and the top three teams in each pool then move on to the final six at the Toronto Rock Centre. We ended up 5–2, and qualified to moved on to play with the five other top teams.”
When the dust settles from the final tournament, the remaining team will be the Provincial A Peewee Champions.
The Vets will be up against teams from Oakville, Orangeville, Peterborough, Mimico, and Burlington – all cities and towns that are lacrosse hotbeds and routinely turn out high level teams.
The coaches have high hopes for the Vets squad’s results in the finals.
“We have 16 runners, and a core of ten kids who have played together since they were four years-old” Millsap said. “Rusty is a former National Lacrosse League player and he’s coached them. When they were four years-old we put together a ‘paperweight’ team, so these kids have played together for almost seven years as a cohesive unit.”
That cohesive team play, together with the fact that the team has the speed and skill, should provide them with the ability to be highly competitive in the final tournament.
“They’re all extremely athletic. Of the teams we are going to play on the weekend, there’s maybe one or two teams that could run with us out-run us. The kids are pretty smart. When Rusty tells them to do something, they pick up on it right away. They take direction really well. They never lose their cool. They understand that there may be someone out there trying to get them – they just deal with it. It’s been a real nice group of kids and parents to deal with over the last seven years.”
While the goal is to come out on top in the final tournament, the fact that the squad has made it into the top six at the provincial level is already an accomplishment that the entire organization should be proud of.
The Free Press will follow up with the final results in the next edition.

By Brian Lockhart