CW Kids Shine!

It's a huge doff of the Ruggernut's cap to the 19 CW youth players who participated in the PRC tournaments held at UBC on the weekend.  Firstly, the CW Girl's Sextet played a big part in a rather surprising upset win when the Island Tsunami defeated Fraser Valley, 10 - 7 in the final.  In round robin play, Fraser Valley had been 26 - 7 victors!  One cannot imagine just how deep those Island girls must have dug in the final ten minutes of defense of their line.  The Fraser Valley's female programs have been the benchmark at the U18 level for some time and it looked like the U16's were taking off on the same path.  Credit to Island teams who seem to be pursuing the development path for these young players, not to mention the quality of coaching the girls are receiving.  It is important that clubs just don't suddenly react to talent and force/encourage the girls to "play up".  HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL INVOLVED!

Then there is the V.I. South Island Boys U15 team that went undefeated during the tournament, 4 - 0 and scoring a mammoth 155 points and not having their line crossed is some kind of effort.  CW contributed 13 of the 25 players on the squad.

In the final, Vancouver Island controlled the possession during the first half but struggled to capitalize with points on the board, but once they finally broke through they could not be stopped. At the half they were up 19-0, and they kept up the strong play in the second frame to earn the gold medal.

“Once we saw that [Vancouver beat South Surrey], we were a little bit fearful, because we knew that if they beat South Surrey, then they could probably do the same to us as well,” said Vancouver Island South head coach Spencer Robinson. “So we knew that we had to be on our A-game.”

The win capped off an impressive weekend that saw Vancouver Island South outscore their opponents 155-0. Jonah Hall was especially impressive on a team that dominated as an entire unit.

“We were very proud the fact that we were able to keep other teams off the scoreboard,” said Robinson. “I know we scored a lot of points, but our main focus was defence.”  'ONYAS, ALL from The Ruggernut.

CW's Gavin Kratz on the rampage