The Quesnel bantam Wildfire lacrosse team is off to a good start to their season with two wins in Williams Lake last weekend.
“We had a good compete level,” Wildfire coach Matt Gook said of his team of 13 and 14-year-old boys and girls.
The Wildfire opened up their season with an 8-2 win against the Williams Lake Bighorns.
The Wildfire had a 3-2 lead after the first 20 minutes and never looked back, adding six unanswered goals to round out the scoring.
Levi Robertson, captain of the Quesnel Wildfire led all scorers with five goals.
“We jumped on them right from the start and didn’t let up,” Gook said of his team’s effort.
Later in the afternoon, the Wildfire played their second game of the season against the Prince George Posse.
Again, the Wildfire’s speed and size proved to be the difference in the game, as they ran to an 11-5 win over the Posse.
Bryston Waffle led the way offensively for the Wildfire, finding the back of the net five times.
Robertson continued his offensive prowess as he added three more goals to his weekend’s tally.
Ian Jarvis added two goals for Quesnel and Dylan Cathcart added a single.
Although the Wildfire excelled on the offensive side of the ball, Gook did
see a couple of areas that needed improvement, especially the transition game.
“We were a little slow on the transition from offence to defence,” Gook said.
The end result, was Quesnel netminder T. J. Reistad had to make several brilliant saves to maintain the Wildfire advantage.
“He was phenomenal,” Gook said.
“He’s a big guy and he covers a lot of the net.”
Although not surprised with the good start to the season, Gook said he didn’t know what his team was capable of until he observed them under game conditions.
“They played well,” Gook said.
“I think we have a good mix of returning players and rookies.”
The Wildfire and the other Quesnel lacrosse teams, are in action this weekend with a tournament in Prince George at the Kin arenas next to the CN Centre.
First home games for the Quesnel teams are scheduled for June 4, with games beginning at 9:30 a.m.