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Oceanside Sharks are hungry for wins

Junior lacrosse team is ready for a good points feeding frenzy

Minor lacrosse was centre stage at Oceanside Place Wednesday evening and the hometown Sharks sure looked hungry as they took to the floor for back-to-back games and outscored their opponents, 25-7.

Oceanside’s Midget B Sharks opened the home stand with a wide-open run and gun against Nanaimo. The Timbermen opened the scoring, and the Sharks led 3-2 after the first stanza. Nanaimo struck early in the second, but Oceanside nailed down the 11-3 win with eight unanswered goals.

It was the Sharks’ final regular season game, and left them sitting fourth in the 12-team Island league at 11-5.

“Real good game by our guys,” Sharks’ exec Phil Anderson confirmed after. “I thought our second year Midget players stepped up their game and played really hard in their final home game of minor lacrosse.”

That was the case for five of the local lads on the roster of 13 — four of those have been playing boxla for years.

On Wednesday, captain Jarrett Weme led the charge offensively for the Sharks with a hat trick. Curtis Novak and Luke Russi tallied for two goals apiece, and Chase Anderson, Ian Whibley, Nick Buksa and Jory Clermont chipped in with singles.

Earning extra props for their efforts were Chase and Josh Bouchard “who were beasts on defence,”  and Whibley, a first year boxla player that’s paid big dividends.

“He’s been our biggest story this year — he’s a naturally gifted athlete, and from the beginning to the end of the season he’s by far our most improved player.”

Other standouts included Buksa, Erik Johnston, and Quinn Donaldson “who were real good game changers retrieving loose balls,” and Brock Johnston “who played a really good hard steady game.”

Sharks ‘tender Jason Linn was solid and made the big stops when he had to to pick up the win in net.

“Our boys have really come together as a team — they’ve faced a lot of adversity this year,” said Anderson, and agreed the squad of 15 and 16-year-olds are looking forward to their opening round best of three series against Campbell River.

“We match up very evenly so it should be a great series.”

The Midget B Sharks open their playoffs with a best of three series against the Campbell River Ravens with game one and two on Saturday in, wait now, Victoria, with game three, if necessary, to go Sunday.

The Ravens finished the regular season sitting fifth at 10-6-1 and won the only head to head against Oceanside, 3-2, the beginning of June.

“It’s ridiculous; can you imagine how Campbell River feels?,” Anderson confirmed when asked the logic of making two up-Island teams travel to Victoria for their neutral site series.

Port Alberni or even Courtenay would have surely sufficed.

“It just doesn’t make sense, I mean now you’re talking hotel rooms if it goes to Sunday.”

In the evening game, the Intermediate C Sharks blasted Port Alberni 14-4 in a rough one that saw two tilts at game’s end. The older Sharks host Saanich at 3:45 p.m. Saturday for their final home game of the year, and close out their regular season the following Tuesday (June 26) against those same Tigers in Fuller Lake.

 

 

IN OTHER RESULTS

The Bantam B Sharks were in Comox Wednesday night where they rolled to a 12-7 win over the hometown Wild.

The win lifts the Sharks to 10-4-1 on the regular season (with two of those losses against a team that has since moved up a tier) and has them sitting third in the eight-team Island league.

They close out their regular season this Sunday against JDF #2 (1 and 4 p.m. start times).