After rattling off five straight wins from May 25 to June 10, the Rockyview Silvertips junior B lacrosse team had their winning ways come to a screeching halt after a pair of games on June 15 and 17 against the Calgary Mounties and Red Deer Rampage. The game against the Mounties started off on the right foot with a goal from Logan Ellis less than six minutes in to give the home side an early 1-0 lead. Calgary responded to knot the game at one, but the tie only lasted a few seconds before Colby Gulutzan picked the ball off the ensuing face-off, rushed down to the Mounties end and sauced a sweet dish to teammate Matthew Dyck who fired the ball past the Calgary goaltender to make it 2-1. Josh Halcro made it 3-1 and then the teams traded goals to end the first period with Dyck and Gulutzan getting their names on the score sheet once more pushing the score to 5-3. The Mountaineers scored less than 30 seconds into the second period to make it 5-4 with Logan Ellis replying within two minutes, regaining the Silvertips' two-goal lead. Matthew Dyck scored his hat-trick goal but the Mounties went on to score four in the remainder of the period to give the visitors a 8-7 lead heading into the final period of play. The teams traded goals in the final frame with Noah Deitz scoring and Matthew Dyck adding his fourth tally to bring the contest to a 10-9 score with under four minutes remaining. Calgary would put the finishing touches on their victory with a goal at the 3:48 to secure the 11-9 final. The 'Tips had a day off before returning to action on June 17 against the division-leading Red Deer Rampage. The game got off to a slow start for Rockyview as Red Deer scored the games first four goals in the first and second before Colby Gulutzan got his team on the board. Gulutzan's goal was then followed by another three Rampage goals to extend their lead to 7-1. Tanner Lam and Patrick Morrow closed out the scoring in the second period with the Silvertips down 7-3. Red Deer would extend the lead to 9-3 and 11-5 by the end of the game with Christian Scott and Nolan Oakey upping their personal tallies with goals in the final frame. "It (the losses) were a little disappointing to be honest. Especially after a five-game winning streak," said defender Christian Scott when asked about his team's performance. "But we have to turn our focus to the next few games and use these pair of losses as learning experiences to make sure they don't happen again. We learned that we cannot take any of our opponents lightly ... we need to bring it every time we hit the floor and be prepared for the game." Scott was named team player of the game in the most recent contest against Red Deer and the young Cochrane defender said he's been happy with how his game has progressed since the beginning of the season. "Yeah, I've been fairly happy with my performance up until this point in the season," Scott said. "In practice, we've been working a lot on our running, our systems and our conditioning, so just getting use to all that is helping out a lot." Even with the pair of losses, the Silvertips are in the thick of a playoff race with only seven games remaining in the schedule. Scott believes the team can lock down one of those spots. "We just have to concentrate on each individual game separately and really have to execute our systems," Scott said. "Later in the season, teams tend to gain an extra surge of desire to win games. We have to be ready for that and try to outwork every team." Rockyview now has a pair of games on June 23 and 24 against the Calgary Shamrocks and the Regina Fish. Scott believes his team needs to work hard in order to come away with a pair of victories. "From what we know about Calgary, the Shamrocks are still one of the stronger teams in the league. They are a really well coached team and we have to get out and get up on them early to try and set the tone for the game," Scott said. "This is the first time we are seeing Regina, but I expect a gritty hard-working group so we just have to try and outwork them on both ends of the floor. If we do that, then we'll be successful."
