After a decisive victory in their league final, the Lloydminster Border Brutes are headed to the Alberta U17 lacrosse championship on the July 10-12 weekend in Medicine Hat.
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In their first season playing out of the new Cenovus Energy Hub’s Co-op Community Arena, the Border Brutes hosted the three-team Wheatland Lacrosse Association championship tournament last weekend. In what proved to be the final game, they clipped the Vermilion-Wainwright Roar-Wolfpack 14-3 on Sunday, June 28.
Lloyd’s victory in that morning start negated the need for a second game later Sunday in the double-knockout tourney.
After experiencing growing pains early in the season, the Border Brutes found their winning formula.
“We went to a couple of tournaments to sort of gauge how we’d do,” recounted Lloydminster coach Jeremy Plamondon. “We did OK in one tournament and in the other tournament we only won one game. We regrouped after that tournament and we made a few changes.”
In their Saturday matchup in the Wheatland league playoffs, the Border Brutes built an early 6-1 lead and staved off the Lakeland Heat 8-7.
Lakeland — the same organization that won the provincial title last year — was involved in three one-goal games during this year’s Wheatland playoffs, losing 5-4 to Vermilion-Wainwright on Saturday after winning 2-1 over the Roar-Wolfpack in Friday’s opener.
While the Border Brutes placed six players among the league’s top eight scorers, the Lloyd roster is all about variety.
“We’ve got a very diverse group,” Plamondon said Sunday. “We’ve got first-year-ever-to-lacrosse players, we’ve got four girls, we’ve got kids that are just learning lacrosse, and then we’ve got our core group that’s been there for a long time.
“Every year, I can kind of recruit a kid or two to play, and that’s what happened with our goalie (Zayne Yushchyshyn) that played yesterday’s game. He had never played it before (this season) and he did fantastic. He’s a big reason that we got here.
“And we had also talked to our other goalie, (Rocklin Schwenk), who quit two years ago. He came back — he was our goalie today and he played tremendously.”
In that Sunday finale, Lloydminster broke open a 2-2 game, outscoring Vermilion-Wainwright 8-1 in the second period.
Isaiah Wiens scored three goals and four assists to lead the Border Brutes’ offence, while Ryssan Thiessen collected three of each. Carson Bergerud added three goals and an assist.
League scoring champion Ryder Plamondon — Jeremy’s son — contributed two goals and four points.
The other multiple-point players for the Broder Brutes were Hunter Deck, with two goals, Reeve Hawthorne, with a goal and an assist, and Kale Pierce, with three assists.
Levi Brown, Emmerson McLaughlin and Ayden McMullen tallied for Vermilion-Wainwright.
In Lloyd’s one-goal victory Saturday, Plamondon scored two goals, including the winner, as part of his five-point game. Wiens, the league’s second-leading scorer, potted four points, including a hat trick.
Hawthorne and Thiessen each supplied a goal and an assist. Deck also scored and Jase Beriault added two assists.
The top scorers for Lakeland in that game were Carson Van Happen, with five points (2-3), and Liam Bordeleau, with a hat trick.
Deegan Smith, with three points, and Kael Cardinal also scored for the Heat.
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