Redcoats take home silver
The Governor Simcoe Redcoats added to their medal collection at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) A/AA field lacrosse championships in Keswick.
The Redcoats took home silver after dropping a 10-7 decision to McKinnon Park of Caledonia in the final.
“I think it’s a little disappointing,” Redcoats coach Jamie Brophy said. “You go in as the No. 1 seed and you hope to achieve what the ranking is but I am not disappointed with the performance. You always go to hope to win it but they played super hard and worked and pushed through and persevered.”
Brophy said the Redcoats were not at full strength.
“We were not 100 per cent. We suffered some injuries leading into OFSAA and then some more. We were playing with a few injuries.”
The Redcoats topped Crestwood Prep 10-3, blanked host Keswick 14-0 and then defeated Holy Cross of Peterborough 10-3 before losing in the final.
“McKinnon Park was a very strong team, really deep,” Brophy said. “In our game, they had eight scorers of their 10 goals. They were a tough test.”
The Redcoats fell behind 5-1 in the final before rallying to tie the score at 5-5.
“We were playing catchup and then they pulled ahead and we played from behind at the end,” Brophy said. “In the field game, you need possession and we couldn’t get possession at times in the third and forth and they burned a whole bunch of clock and that came back to haunt us.”
Ari Steenhuis and Sutter Pilon paced Simcoe with three goals each in the final while Cody MacNeil also scored.
The medal was the third straight for the defending champion Redcoats who were also awarded silver in 2022.
“Based on that, based on the results, you’d have to say that we’re one of the top teams, if not the top team, in the province,” Brophy said. “Nobody has had three medals in three straight years.”
The Redcoats will be losing a number of players but Brophy feels there is a good pipeline of talent in the wings.
“We’re going to have a lot of turnover for sure. A lot of these kids have been in the program since Grade 9 and 10 and a lot of them are at the Grade 12 level,” he said. “We’ve built a good program here that is encouraging kids here to come and get involved and we’re getting lacrosse players and also a lot of good kids who are invested in building and continuing with the program.”
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