The Alberta Junior A Lacrosse League regular season title came down to the last night of action, the result, however, was never in doubt.
The Okotoks Jr. Raiders finished atop the Alberta standings for the third season in a row after dispatching the Calgary Mountaineers 10-5 on July 11 to clinch the first seed in the playoffs and a postseason date with the last-place St. Albert Miners.
“It was a great season,” said Raiders veteran Cam Copland. “Everyone told us we were in a rebuilding year when we started off and we finished first. You can’t say a bad thing about that.”
The Raiders (13-3-1-1) entered the season with tempered expectations after losing several key cogs from their two-time league championship roster — including the likes of goalie Adam Shute and offensive leaders Chad Mitchell and Travis Comeau and defenders Barclay Hickey and Mitch Banister.
Okotoks, under first year head coach Daryl Haynes, defied the odds all season long and, along with the Mountaineers, were head and shoulders above the league. Okotoks finished first in the province in goals for, 222, and allowed the least amount against at 133.
“We’re pretty happy with it,” Haynes said of his first season in Okotoks. “We gave away some games we would probably like to have back.”
Haynes called the 2012 version of the Raiders a retool rather than the unfortunate rebuild label.
“That’s the message we gave to the kids all along and they seemed to have done it,” Haynes said. “And it’s another first-place finish for the Raiders.”
Okotoks closed out the regular season on a 7-2-1 run and capped off the schedule by beating a solid Mountaineers squad to win the season series over their southern rivals.
Haynes said the Raiders are entering the post-season with momentum on their side.
“We’ve brought in a couple systems and the boys are all buying in,” Haynes said. “We’ve got everybody on the bus and we’ve pretty much found the right seat for everybody on the bus.
“One of the things that we’re very, very keen on as the coaching staff (is) we see lots of room for improvement, positive improvement moving forward,” he said.
There are plenty of reasons for optimism for Okotoks in its best-out-of-five opening series with St. Albert.
The Raiders took all five of their meetings with the Miners (3-14-1) while outscoring their first round playoff opponent by a margin of 82-45 in a dominant season series.
Despite the disparity in wins and losses between the clubs, Haynes said his club won’t take the Miners lightly.
“The message we’ve been preaching is peaks and valleys, if you get rid of the peaks, get rid of the valleys and keep that even keel,” Haynes said. “I don’t think overconfidence is going to be a problem for us, we’ve got a great work ethic.
“If you listen to the guys in the dressing room there really doesn’t seem to be a sense of overconfidence whatsoever.”
Copland, an Okotoks native and assistant captain in his fourth season with the Raiders, isn’t taking the Miners for granted.
“It’s going to be a good, physical series,” Copland said. “We had a game up there last weekend (July 8) and it was pretty intense and I’m assuming it’s going to be like that the whole way.
“They have really strong righties so we’ve got to try and keep it away from them.”
The Miners boast offensive talent with five runners in the top 15 in league scoring, led by veterans Ryan Davis, Richard Thompson and David Ahl.
Haynes said its incumbent on the Raiders to harness the positive momentum into the postseason.
“If we continue to play the systems that we’ve played we should do well, but every time we seem to play them they tend to give us a good game, certainly for a couple periods,” Haynes said. “We’re expecting a good, tough, physical series.”
The playoff schedule is yet to be released.
For more information go to www.abjralacrosse.com.
