The Rockyview Rage junior B Tier 2 lacrosse team had a rough go against a pair of the league's top two teams on June 16 and 17. The Rage kicked off the weekend against the first place Red Deer Rampage in the team's final regular season home game. Red Deer got off to a quick start jumping to a 2-0 lead before Josh Olsen cut the deficit in half at the 16:31 mark of the first period, which is as close as the home side would come in the contest. The Rampage would go on to score seven goals in the remaining 16 minutes to push their lead to 9-1 at the end of the first. In the second, Jacob Berg, Konner Van Den Bossche and John Deis scored for the Rage but Red Deer added five goals of their own to once again extend their lead to 13-4 heading into the final period of play. Brad Yakiwchuk scored to make it 13-5 but was quickly responded by Red Deer to regain their nine goal lead ... Zach Kosack scored Rockyview's final goal of the game before Red Deer got the game's remaining five goals to end the game in favour of the Rampage with a 19-6 score. The Rage had a short turn around and travelled to Sylvan Lake to play the league's second-ranked Yetti's, which may have played a part in the result of the game. Sylvan Lake put pressure on Rage goaltenders Andrew Smollett and Reese Sellwood all night, peppering them with shots and putting 14 goals past the two exhausted Rockyview netminders. Rockyview did not score a goal over the course of the game and struggled to find offence against one of the league's stingiest defensive teams.The game was also a rough affair with a combined 62 penalty minutes between the two teams including two five-minute high sticking infractions. "Yeah, it was a tough weekend. When you have two teams that are this good, I think they should meet in the finals. I'm not sure how the playoff or provincial formatting works but these two teams could possibly finish with gold and silver respectively ... that's how good they are," said Rage head coach Kent Proctor. "Those were two teams gearing up for provincials and one had been struggling as of late (Sylvan Lake) by losing a game or two so they took the weekend pretty seriously, which was good for us but this was for sure going to be the toughest weekend of the year for us." With his team being in their inaugural season, Proctor said he was happy with how the Rage played in the two games even though they were both one-sided results. "I'm really happy with the group of boys we have. At the end of the game, I wasn't frustrated with effort level or compete as funny as it may seem after losing by 13 or 14 goals," Proctor said. "We're playing two better teams, and as the game went on our players got better and competed really hard right to the end. These are really important games to go through as a young club ... obviously ... you don't like to get beat by 20 goals. We've done a good job competing this year and we have some really gritty players who don't like to lose, so as a coach what more could you ask for." Proctor added this season is a learning process for his team and having those gritty, don't like to lose players will only help the team moving forward. "I'm really excited about next year already. Going into next season, already having a group of core veterans will really help and I know they have a certain mentality and attitude that will serve us so well next year," Proctor said. "We'll have at least 10 players returning next year, so we're in great shape. Then a bunch of the Midget players that spent time with us too will help because they've already learned a bit about the culture that we've built over this year." The Rage head coach doesn't like to highlight individual performances, but couldn't help but mention the play of his two goaltenders over the course of the season. Reese Sellwood and Andrew Smollett tend the twine for the team and face an inordinate number of shots each game, but still manage to keep Rockyview in most of their games against tougher opponents. "I coached Reese last year so I knew he was a good goalie. Then from our training camp, I knew Andrew was right on par with Reese," Proctor said. "When you make the jump from minor to junior, the nets are quite a bit bigger and it actually takes some adjusting ... so I was pleasantly surprised with the goaltending we've gotten despite the fact we're sometimes getting beat by 10-plus goals. It's been far better then I thought it might be." With a 6-10 record, good for fourth place in the division, the Rage will finish the regular season on June 22 at home against the Calgary Tier 2 Axemen.
