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Jr. Raiders rush onto league final

With reward comes rest for the Okotoks Jr. A Raiders.

With reward comes rest for the Okotoks Jr. A Raiders.

Okotoks capped off its best regular season in nearly a decade to earn the bye through to the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League championship with a sparkling 19-1 mark in the five-team inter-provincial outfit.

“The kids all bought in,” said Raiders assistant coach and Okotokian Mitch Banister. “We have a really good group of guys and we managed to work hard in practice and they were all able to contribute and finish off with a good season.”

That would be an understatement.

The Raiders' best regular season since 2011, the year the squad won the league title and hosted the Minto Cup national tournament in Okotoks, features a number of parallels to six summers ago.

“Back in 2011 we had a very tight-knit team,” said Banister, an alternate captain on the 2011 team. “All of us got along together and enjoyed playing together and coming to the rink every day to work.

“I think this year I see a lot of the same qualities within the kids, it definitely reminded me a lot of it.”

Players who marked their debut during the Raiders' next championship run in 2013 are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in their junior swan songs.

Seniors in captain Travis Getz, High Riverite Kade McCormick and the physically imposing Dylan Kinnear all amassed at least four points per game.

Brett McIntyre, a year younger than the veteran core, led the league with 58 goals in the regular season while lefty Levi Anderson chipped in with 27 goals and 71 points on the campaign.

“Our leadership group has been unbelievable this year,” the coach added. “They've been able to be such good role models for the younger guys and leaders for them to follow. They were a big part of having everyone buy in to our systems, they took the young guys under their wings and really showed them the ropes.”

Okotoks can point to its season series versus its arch rival for its tremendous record.

The Raiders took four of five meetings with the defending champion Calgary Mountaineers, outscoring the Mounties by a 54-41 margin.

“Every time we play them it's going to be a grind,” Banister said. “We were able to use our athleticism and our transition to really separate ourselves from them.

“They were really tight games and some that could have gone either way, but we were able to pull out the wins.”

The Mounties meet the Saskatchewan SWAT in the semifinal round.

Through two games the Mounties have earned a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five.

Still, the SWAT moving on would represent a significant upset and sea change in the loop.

Calgary and Okotoks have played in five-straight league finals with the teams alternating championship seasons over the past half decade.

For the latest schedules and results go to rockymountainlax.com


Remy Greer

About the Author: Remy Greer

Remy Greer is the assistant editor and sports reporter for westernwheel.ca and the Western Wheel newspaper. For story tips contact [email protected]
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