By RYAN MCCRACKEN on June 24, 2019.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
The Medicine Hat Sun Devils left nothing to chance this weekend at the Moose Recreation Centre.
After closing out the regular season with six wins in their final eight games, the Sun Devils kept on rolling with a two-game sweep of the Calgary Axemen in the opening round of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League junior B Tier 2 playoffs.
The Sun Devils kicked off the post-season with a wild 25-7 victory over Calgary Saturday before closing out the series in convincing fashion with a 13-3 win on Sunday afternoon. While the offence is hard to ignore, Hat head coach Chris Loran says defence ultimately paved the way to their playoff success.
“We’re definitely defensively strong and that, in return, gives us the offensive drive,” said Loran, whose Sun Devils will advance to take on the Sylvan Lake Yetti in the next round. “When the guys are clicking, it’s just nice to watch.”
Sun Devils captain Aidan McLean says they made sure to keep the pedal to the floor in order to prevent the Axemen from mounting a comeback, especially after bouncing back to steal the first-round playoff series from Calgary last year.
“We had to keep our foot on their throats, metaphorically,” said McLean. “Last year they won the first game then we came back to win the next two, so we had that in the back of our minds and we didn’t want that to happen to us.”
Noah Weimer led Sunday’s attack with five goals and an assist while McLean added a hat trick and set up six more goals to fall one point shy of double digits in the victory.
Bryson Helmle followed up with two goals and an assist, while Izaak Loran, Daniel Drefs and Callen Prosofsky added individual tallies, Ty Moore had four assists and Tegan Rogal posted another three.
“I think we’re really working on our teamwork,” said Sun Devils alternate captain Tegan Rogal. “Our defence has gotten 100 times better since we started this year, all the rookies are starting to meld. We’re just playing like a family now.”
Silas McAdam-Saskamoose led the Axemen with two goals in the loss, while captain Phil Moroney added a goal and an assist.
“We never let them in the offensive zone,” said Rogal. “We were playing such good defence and such a good press that they didn’t even have a chance to score.”
Weimer also led Saturday’s goal-scoring with eight tallies and three helpers, while McLean had four goals with a staggering 10 assists. Loran posted two goals and five helpers, Moore had a hat trick with three assists and Drefs potted three goals.
“For a few years we’ve kind of been playing hero ball. Now we’re running a system and it’s getting really good,” said McLean, adding the entire team will stay together next season, making every game’s experience all the more valuable. “The team chemistry is just amazing right now. It’s nice, we’re pulling up guys from younger teams and they fit right in. It’s a great team to play with right now.”
Moroney led Calgary’s offence in Saturday’s setback with four goals while McAdam-Saskamoose had two goals and an assist.
Rogal added goaltender Tyson McCormick has been an unsung hero in the team’s crease, providing a consistent backbone to lean on.
“Tyson is playing unreal as of late,” said Rogal. “He’s making these wicked saves and sucking in rebounds, not giving them anything. It’s awesome.”
The Sun Devils will travel to Sylvan Lake to kick off their second-round series with the Yetti on July 6.
“We know that they’re going to be a high-quality team. They’re looking to really run the pace to us,” said coach Loran. “They’ve definitely got the numbers in their advantage so we just want to make sure we stay defensively strong and react.”
The Sun Devils only met up with Sylvan Lake once in the regular season, a 14-3 setback that came in the team’s second road game of that afternoon.
“We haven’t done that since midget,” Rogal said of playing two regular season games in one day. “They beat us, sadly. But I think if we keep playing like we’re playing it’ll be easy, no problem.”