Regals spoil debut of junior B Athletics
Someday, Levi Roest will be one of the answers in an obscure trivia quiz about St. Catharines lacrosse.
On Thursday at the Bill Burgoyne Arena, the 17-year-old St. Catharines native scored the first two goals in the history of the St. Catharines Athletics junior B team lacrosse team.
The Grade 11 student and field lacrosse player at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute in Buffalo wasn’t putting much stock in his two goals that came in a 6-3 loss to the visiting Guelph Regals.
“It is just two goals and it doesn’t matter if they are the first or last goals. It’s just two goals,” he said.
Even with the loss, it was a memorable night for Roest and his teammates.
“It was awesome, I had so much fun.”
He can’t wait for the rest of the season to unfold.
“I am looking forward to creating bonds with the guys and winning games.”
Roest has been playing travel lacrosse since he was 11 but the game against Guelph was his junior debut.
“I started played house league lacrosse and someone noticed me. They told me I was too good to play house league so that put me up to the travel teams.”
He took his first junior action in stride.
“I think a lot of us had nerves but there was also a bunch of us who didn’t have any nerves,” Roest said. “I didn’t have any.”
St. Catharines trailed 2-1 after one period and 5-1 after two. After the Regals made it 6-1 early in the third, the Athletics potted a pair of goals to make it interesting.
“I thought we played really well but we just couldn’t bring it through,” Roest said. “Their goalie was good, our goalie was good and it was a great game.”
Athletics head coach Mike Lines said first-game jitters were a factor in the loss.
“We had nerves, that’s for sure. Ninety-five per cent of our team has never played junior B game before,” he said. “They worked their asses off, they put a solid effort in and that is all you can ask for.”
St. Catharines had a ton of Grade A chances and breakaways but had a hard time solving Guelph goalie Dante Mancini. It also didn’t helped that the A’s went 0-9 with the man advantage.
“You take 56 shots on net and score three goals you are not going to win too many games. That is pretty obvious,” Lines said. “Our defence played well and it was a good run to get in early in the season Now we know what we are looking at.”
For the most part, Lines liked what he saw from his squad.
“There’s a lot of positives. If there was a lack of effort, we would be worried,” he said. “The majority of the mistakes we made tonight are coachable and that is the bottom line.”
STATS PACK
Regals 6 Athletics 3
BPSN Player of the Game: Guelph goalie Dante Mancini with 53 saves.
For the Guelph Regals: Marcus Keleher (2); Aiden Marroni, Julian Siragusa, Ethan Keleher; Owen Orpana.
For the St. Catharines Athletics: Levi Roest (2); Nolan Fehr.
Game stats: Shots on goal: By Athletics on Mancini 56; By Regals on Oliver Vanyo 51. Penalty minutes: Athletics 12, Regals 21. Power plays: Athletics 0-9, Regals 2-6.
Up next: The Athletics are at the Hamilton Bengals next Wednesday. Next home game is May 15 against the Point Edward Pacers.
