A squad made up of 18 players from rural midget lacrosse teams from Olds and six other Central Alberta communities handed a California team their first losses in two years to capture gold at the United States Box Lacrosse Association Nationals tournament.
The Mountain View Mavericks Elite team included six players from Olds and went 4-0 during round-robin play at the tournament, which was held from August 2 to 4 in Irvine, Calif., before defeating the Cali-Lax ALL-STARS in the tournament's championship game.
The players from Olds were Matthew Gaudette, Jordon Waddell, Connor Jorgensen, Parker Vockeroth, Jagger Emerson and Dexter Hebert and the team selected its players based on recommendations from each player's own coach as well as a coach from another team.
Other players came from Bowden, Innisfail, Three Hills, Lacombe, Red Deer and Hobbema and the team practised together only four times before the tournament.
The Mavericks tallied their first win on Aug. 2, beating the Junior Washington Stealth 4-2.
The next day, the Mavericks played three games, defeating the Cali-Lax ALL-STARS— who, according to the Mavericks' assistant coach, had not lost in 56 games over two-and-a-half years— by a score of 5 to 4 in a shootout before besting the Cali-Lax ALL-STARS White team 6-2.
These wins secured the squad a spot in the tournament's gold medal game.
Eight Mavericks players then joined forces with three Junior Washington Stealth players on a tournament all-star team that defeated Team USA 2-0 in an exhibition all-star game.
The Mavericks also earned a 7-6 shootout victory over the Denver Elite before heading into the gold medal game against the Cali-Lax ALL-STARS.
Although the Mavericks were first on the scoreboard, the All-Stars were up 2-1 at the end of the first frame.
At the end of the second period, the teams were deadlocked at 3-3 and tied again 6-6 at the end of the third before the Mavericks won the game 7-6 in a shootout.
Bowden sent one player, Ben Andrist, as well as assistant coach Dave Welton to the team and Innisfail had five players, Nolan Pochapsky, Kaden Christensen, Teren Christensen and Ward Marshall and Matthew Grabill, as well as assistant coach Trey Christensen, on the team.
