The Prince Albert Predators gave it their all, but couldn’t overcome the Queen City Kings in the Founders’ Cup play-in falling 11-3 at Al Ritchie Memorial Arena on Sunday afternoon.
Predators head coach Lucas Wells says Prince Albert didn’t play the type of lacrosse game that they wanted to against the Kings.
“If you were to look at the box score and see 11-3, I don’t think that it’s an 11-3 game. They didn’t score a single goal 5 on 5 the entire game. They had six goals 4 on 4, 5 on the power play. We had a terrible first period. Those are going to happen, and you have to overcome them. I think in the second and the third, we kind of bounced back a little bit. I think they outscored us 5-2 after the first period, and that’s going to happen, being down 6-1. Overall, I think we didn’t play the game we wanted to play, but that’s also going to happen.”
The Predators earned the spot in the Founders’ Cup play-in by defeating the Saskatchewan SWAT 15-6 at the Kinsmen Arena in Prince Albert back on May 24. Saturday’s game in Regina was the second of a best-of-three series against the Kings, who took Game 1 at the Kinsmen Arena in Prince Albert 11-10 in overtime on May 31.
It was the first time in program history that the Predators had attempted to play into the Founders’ Cup. Prince Albert competes in the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League (PGLL) which is a Junior B Tier II league. The SWAT and Kings both compete in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) which is a Junior B Tier I league.
Despite not earning the trip to the tournament in Hamilton, Wells says he is extremely proud of the accomplishments that the Predators made during the Founders’ Cup play-in process.
“I told the guys in the room after that we might have lost, but they are the first team in PGLL history from my records that has ever tried to go up against a tier one team. They’re the first PGLL team to beat a tier one team. They’re the first PGLL team to take a tier one team to overtime. That team that we played today, Queen City, they’re arguably the best team in the province and I think that we are right there with them.”
Penalties turned out to be the undoing for Prince Albert in Sunday’s game. The Predators took a total of 17 penalties in the game compared to Queen City’s 15 in the contest.
Wells says he wasn’t critical of the officiating, but that Prince Albert can’t afford to be undisciplined against a talented opponent.
“I don’t think it has to do with the officiating. I think it has to do with our club’s discipline. Those are the three best officials in the province and anybody that says otherwise can grab a jersey. At the end of the day, it came down to our discipline. I haven’t looked at the actual physical box score, but I would venture to guess we probably had 20 penalties. You can’t take 20 penalties against the best team in the province. You just can’t.“
In terms of scoring, Matthew Cudmore led the way for Prince Albert with a goal and an assist on the afternoon. Hayden Ulriksen and Braden Shewchuk also recorded tallies for the Predators.
For Queen City, Jaxson Lenz led the charge with three goals and six assists. Ryan McDonald added six points while Ethan Palandri recorded five points.
As the top team in the PGLL during the regular season, the Predators will have nearly three weeks off before they travel for Game 1 of the league final on July 20.
Wells says the team can take a lot of lessons from the Founders’ Cup play-in for the rest of their PGLL schedule.
“I think that we can take the adversity part of it, which is going to be huge. I think just the adversity of understanding what it feels like to be smothered, that’s essentially what we’ve done to teams all year. I think our biggest downfall for this game specifically was we don’t play high -end talent. These guys have been playing in a league above us. They’re used to smothering teams or getting smothered and figuring out what to do in that situation. This is honestly the first game in three or four years that we’ve had that happen to us. I think it was good for us. I think it was good for the young guys to understand the intensity and the physicality.”
sports@paherald.sk.ca