The Moose Jaw Mustangs gave it a good shot in the Saskatchewan Lacrosse Association 16-and-under provincial championship final, but in the end saw their gold medal hopes dashed by a single, solitary goal.
The Mustangs went unbeaten through to the final of the tournament at Mosaic Place this weekend before dropping a 4-3 decision to the Regina Snipers in the title game on Sunday afternoon.
While the loss was disappointing for Mustangs head coach Jeremy Ebbett, the veteran bench boss still expressed pride in his team’s showing at the event.
“It’s a game of [momentum] runs, so typically you see two or three in a row and you have to stop those runs. Unfortunately, they got a couple of quick ones on us and we had trouble recovering,” said Ebbett, who saw his team leading 2-1 after the first period and tied 3-3 through two. “I’m proud of these kids, though, we brought five kids in from Estevan because we were so short, so we throw this team together just for this weekend and we go 3-1. We couldn’t come up with that last goal, but I’m very proud of our effort.”
The Mustangs got off to a great start in the final, as after Regina opened scoring, Mason Williams and Cashton Seaborg scored just over two minutes apart late in the frame to give Moose Jaw their first-period lead.
Regina scored two quick ones midway through the second to lead 3-2, but Williams picked up his second of the afternoon with 3:33 left in the period to send things into the final 20 minutes all tied up.
There, Regina’s Easton Tytlandsvik scored his second of the game with 6:36 remaining to give the Snipers the gold medal.
While winning silver might not have been the colour Moose Jaw was hoping for, it was still a wildly successful season for the local crew.
“We had some success this year, for sure, we won the Calgary Canada Day tournament and also had a bunch of players playing ‘A’ ball on the Stealth team and got silver there, too, so these players accomplished quite a bit this year and they should be proud themselves,” Ebbett said.
“But at the same time, we sort of left something out here that we know we’re going to regret… you look back on things a week from now we’ll be thinking we should have done better today. There were some things that were uncharacteristic of our team, but that happens, that’s why you play the games.”
Ebbett also touched on what was a solid weekend in general for Moose Jaw lacrosse, including the 14U Mustangs winning gold and the 12U Mustangs reaching the bronze medal game.
“The whole weekend for the Moose Jaw Lacrosse Association hosting provincials, it’s just been a fantastic weekend at all three venues,” he said. “I think the Mustang teams, in general, had a lot of success this weekend and we’re recovering numbers-wise from the pandemic and stuff like that, so next year looks really bright.”
Moose Jaw opened their provincials run with an 8-2 win over the Regina Octane before downing the Swift Current Rampage 6-4 in their other round-robin game. The Mustangs then rematched the Rampage in the semifinal and rolled to a 10-4 win.
