Bears second at provincial championship
Friday June 20 2008
By Will Cottingham, for the Banner
The “fabulous” Bears of ODSS capped off their winning ways with a silver medal at the recent women’s field lacrosse provincial meet at Oshawa’s Lakeview Park.
“We won the first four games but lost in the end at the final,” team manager and assistant coach Allan Alderson says. “Overall, we did really well. Last year we won the bronze, so this year we took things a step further.”
The Bears had to take that step without the strong mental game and lightning foot-speed of midfielder Ceilidh Williams, who had torn her ACL only days before the tournament began.
It wasn’t a good sight to arrive at school that morning and see the team captain hobbling around, Alderson says.
“She’s the leader of the team,” he says. “She has a very competitive spirit and is everything you would want in a captain, and you feel bad — it’s just one of those things.”
The team’s less experienced players were given an opportunity to step up, Alderson says, and that is just what they did. Two goals from Candice Styles and a Meredith Lum hat trick helped the Bears reach a respectable tally of eight, but in the end the 15 goals from a stacked Sinclair team, from Whitby, was too much for them.
Thankfully, it isn’t the loss that Alderson will reflect on in years to come.
“The thing I’ll remember most is they never quit,” he says. “They are very smart, knowledgeable, and work well together.”
The Bears credit their overall record of 28 wins and two losses this year with having a strong, familial relationship with one another.
“We’re fabulous,” Williams says. “We’re a closely knit team, and that helped us score goals.”
It was one of those goals that led to the collectively agreed upon highlight of the season: an overtime victory over their arch rivals and the team that eventually beat them in the finals, the infamous Sinclair Celtics, who had their seven-year winning streak come to a jarring halt.
“Yeah, we’re kind of a big deal,” Williams says.
The tournaments have been increasingly competitive since ODSS started participating in women’s field lacrosse five years ago, Alderson says.
“The size has also grown drastically,” he says. “Now between six and 12 teams participate in each tournament. There are some experienced teams, like ours, with some high-end players, and others who are learning.”
Print this article
Email this article
