The Rockyview Junior Ladies Silvertips lacrosse team is back for another season when they open their 2019 Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) campaign on April 28 vs the Calgary Axemen.
The team hired a new head coach in Robin Finley who has played and coached minor to major league lacrosse for close to 40 years. He has coached two Team Alberta lacrosse teams at nationals and is also the director of coaching with the newly-formed Calgary female lacrosse league. Finley said the team's preparation for this upcoming season has been a smooth process so far.
"Preparation has been so far, so good. We've had really good attendance at all of our practices, but as can be the case with junior lacrosse it's not always the same girls there," Finley said. "I'm always getting 17 or 18 girls at practice but I'm looking forward to getting the season going and having our regular roster there in order to finalize team concepts. It's been a bit of an adjustment for me ... I know five or six girls off the team but the rest are getting adjusted to me, my style and learning my level of expectation but it's going into the right direction."
The Silvertips have a good mix of rookies and veterans on the team, with an even split of 12 on each side. Finley said there seems to be a solid foundation on the team.
"In terms of the rookies, there's three of four that have come from the Team Alberta program that is really strong. Rylynn Hills is probably in the top five best players in her age group in the province, she's a pure goal scorer so I'm really looking forward to setting her up on offence ... Livi Clason is another, she played three years on Team Alberta, she's a really skilled outside shooter who I expect to light the lamp a lot. The nets get six inches bigger moving up from Midget to Junior so based what I've been seeing from her at practice (those extra six inches) are like Christmas time which is a big deal," Finley said of this year's crop of rookie talent.
"My daughter Shea (Finley) did two years with Team Alberta, I would rank her in the top five faceoff girls in the entire country ... she won close to 95 per cent of her draws at the two years of Nationals so those are all key factors to help us find success. In terms of interaction between the rookies and veterans, it's been fairly limited so far because we're getting a rotating 18 girls which are mostly rookies. The more experienced girls are 19, 20, 21-year-olds so they have jobs, significant other, different life so they're a little less available but are still participating, so I haven't got the chance to see those interactions quite yet but I have been told we have some real strong leaders on the team and I think once we get in the season and get some team building going we'll be just fine."
The Silvertips finished last season with a disappointing 5-11 record, three games off of their 8-7-1 record from a season prior. Finley is hoping to at least have the team around the .500 mark if not better.
"We're really starting with the basics. What I've found are some of the basics were missing with some of the existing team members," Finley said.
The team will kick off their season at home at the Plaismen Arena on the 28th against the Axemen.
