Mitchell Quong scored twice and added an assist, but it wasn’t enough as the Rockyview Silvertips dropped their Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) season-opener 13-5 to the Calgary Shamrocks.
Cochrane’s Drew Kantor had a goal and Kaidan Reinhardt added an assist for the Silvertips, while Tag Jacob and Bryce Sweetman also scored for Rockyview in the April 27 tilt at Calgary’s Stu Peppard Arena.
The young Silvertips made a go of it for the first two periods against one of the more stacked RMLL teams, trailing just 8-5 after two periods before penalty troubles and mental mistakes caught up to them in the final frame.
“For the first two periods, we took it to ’em and got them off their game with our run-and-gun,” said Silvertips head coach Gord Henry of Cochrane. “This (Shamrocks) is supposed to be the No. 1 team in the province that we had pretty frustrated.”
Despite bringing just 15 runners, the ’Tips were blazing up the floor with Cochrane’s Cordell Lee and Airdrie’s Devan Knittle streaking past Calgary’s larger and slower defenders. When Calgary did catch up, however, the Silvertips paid a price as the Shamrocks weren’t shy about throwing their weight around with Lee taking a stiff cross-check to the neck and Eric Dowie taking an elbow on the ground in the corner. Both would continue playing.
Still, the ’Tips stood their ground and took some costly penalties that blew the game open in the third.
“Game management, time management and penalties,” Henry cited as the main reasons for the loss. “I’m really happy with what I saw, it’s just little things we have to take care of.”
He’s also hoping to exploit other teams by simply attacking the fundamentals of the game. The minute a team gains ball possession on a turnover, players change en-masse, pouring off the bench to go on offence while the defence rests. The defence then takes the floor when the offence turns the ball over.
Henry is looking to take a broad swipe at that trend, just like the bear on the team’s sweater indicates.
“If we can keep playing our game, we’re going to wreck a lot of teams,” he insisted. “They’re strictly offence-defence. When we keep their offensive guys on the floor, as fast as we are, it’s going to mess them up.”
And his goalie, Rhett Baldwin of Calgary, will be keeping the ’Tips in some games if Baldwin’s April 27 showing is any indication.
“He’s really come along,” Henry said of Baldwin. “He made some great saves. He’s going to give us that chance to be competitive while the boys are still figuring things out, which is great.”
Rockyview’s next game goes May 5 in Olds, 3 p.m. at Olds Sports Complex.
