The Sunshine Coast Rapids lacrosse season came to an inspiring conclusion at the B.C. Box Lacrosse Provincial Championships last weekend in Port Coquitlam.
With nearly half their former teammates aged out this year, the midget team had the smallest bench in the league.
Four months ago, 17-year-old Sterling Ratcliff took on the job of head coach and, against all odds, this gritty team fought their way through the regular season finishing in second place in the regional division and securing a spot in the provincial championships.
With only eight runners and a goalie, and with two players aging out, Robbie Parsons and Fraser McDicken, the team played hard and gave it their all.
The first game was against Nanaimo that had 14 runners on their team.
Rapids' goalie Joseph Beckman saved more than 80 shots and was named game MVP in the 8-4 win for Nanaimo.
Game two was against Williams Lake that had 13 runners. The Rapids played hard and showed a lot of heart in an 8-5 loss.
Erik Sawchuk scored the first goal with an assist credited to Nolan O'Reilly. Carlos Ibanez was named game MVP with his three-goal performance and Liam Singleton played hard with his quick dancing feet, making the game enjoyable for the spectators and hard on the opponents.
Being out of the finals, the players held their heads high going into their third game against West Kootenay, with 16 runners.
This game was hard on the Rapids, having many injured players, but all of them played hard in the 10-1 loss.
Carlos scored the lone goal, but kudos to Jessie Mulligan, Raven Wall, Alex Ratcliff and Matt Bentley for their strong play, not only in this game, but throughout the weekend.
At the awards ceremony, Matt received the warrior fair play award and Joseph an all-star player award - both players are in their first year of lacrosse. Ratcliff received the warrior fair play coaching award and the team was given the sportsmanship award out of 30 teams at the provincials.
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