With 12 days off due to their May long break, the Tier 2 Rockyview Rage junior B lacrosse team showed a bit of rust once they returned to the concrete for a pair of games on May 26 and 27. In the first game, the Rage took on the Calgary Tier 2 Axemen at the Stu Peppard Arena in Airdrie. Rockyview got off to a fast start when Adam Goody took a feed from Josh Olsen on the team's first power play of the game and rifled it past the Calgary goaltender just over three minutes into the game. The lead was short-lived as the Axemen replied with two goals of their own in a three-minute span to go up 2-1 midway through the first period. At the 7:44 mark of the period, the Rage were awarded another power play where Jacob Berg was the beneficiary of good ball movement and deposited his first goal of the game to knot the score back up at two. Unfortunately for the home side, the remainder of the period was all Calgary as they scored three even strength goals in the final seven minutes to go up 5-2 after one period of play. The second was much of the same, as the Axemen added another three goals in the first five minutes of the second frame to go up 8-2 ... the Rage would manage to stop a bit of the bleeding as Brad Smith scored with two seconds remaining to cut the deficit to five goals heading into the final period. Ben Mills scored the first goal of the third period on the power play and would add an even strength marker to sandwich an Axemen goal, but the Calgary team went on a five-goal run in the middle of the frame, stretching their lead to 13-4. The Rage would score three goals of their own late in the game, thanks to Adam Goody, Braeden Jewell and Ben Mills, but the final score would read 13-8 in favour of the Axemen. Adam Goody was the Rage offensive leader with two goals, while goaltender Reece Sellwood was solid in net, making some big saves. The Rage didn't have much time for rest and recovery as the team was back in action the following day against first place High River Heat, a team that only has one loss on the season. After Jacob Berg scored to tie the game at one, the contest got away from the Rage as the Heat scored eight goals in the first, eight goals in the second and six goals in the third, giving High River a 23-4 victory. Ben Mills, Josh Olsen and Brad Smith were the goal scorers for Rockyview who drop to 4-7 on the year, thanks to two forfeited wins against the now folded Calgary Tier 3 Axemen. "The first game I thought we were rusty. We only lost by five goals but at one point in time it was almost a 10-goal spread ... so once we got our head out of the clouds we started playing a lot better. Then once the third period started, it was very, very close and I think we can continue to play close with that team (the Axemen) in the future," said Rage head coach Kent Proctor. "Rust was a little bit of an issue in both games as well as we had some injuries and missing some regulars to our line up this weekend which didn't help matters either. Perhaps if we had some of our regular guys instead of affiliates, maybe we fair a little bit better." "Our schedule is funny where the first half of the season was pretty tough, where we only had the one easier game and then we had these two games this weekend against more mature and solid teams. We got the results we expected but are looking forward to the remainder of the season." With six games remaining on the team's schedule, Proctor said his team is where he thought they'd be at this point in the season. "Our record is exactly where I thought it would be. When you look at the teams that are established, even an average established team was probably going to beat us ... we're an expansion team with a lot of 16-year old kids and even some 15-year-olds on our roster playing every game with us," Proctor said. "The two wins (the Rage were awarded two extra wins due to forfeit) we have this season were exactly when I thought they'd be, so basically where the record is right where I thought it'd be for the first half. As for the remainder of the season, our next stretch of three or four games are against teams that we expect to beat." The Rage were scheduled to have a pair of Cochrane home games this weekend against the Strathmore Venom on June 2 and the now defunct Calgary Tier 3 Axemen the following day, but the Sunday contest has now been scheduled to become an exhibition game against a team from West Kootenay. The game against Strathmore will start at 3 p.m.
