There was little benefit to a pair of lopsided wins by the intermediate B Cowichan Thunder last weekend.
The Thunder beat a drastically undermanned Peninsula team 19-3 last Friday, then defeated a similarly shorthanded Saanich squad 15-2 on Sunday.
"You don’t learn anything from a game like that," head coach Lorne Winship said. "If we do get off the Island to play in provincials, we’re going to play teams that have played challenging games, and we’re not playing at the pace we need to. I’d rather play be in one-or two-goal games, win or lose, than be in 10-goal games. Neither team learns from it."
Peninsula showed up for Friday’s game with the bare minimum of five runners, who all had to play the entire game. After the first period, Winship proposed dividing the teams up and just playing a fun game, but Peninsula declined the offer. The Thunder ended up putting one of their defenders in goal for the third period.
Three days later, Peninsula folded.
"They did their best," Winship said. "They tried hard to put a team together and couldn’t get the commitment."
On Sunday night, they were hoping for more of a challege from the Saanich Tigers, but that didn’t happen either.
"They showed up with nine runners, and half the guys who showed up weren’t interested in playing lacrosse," Winship said. "They were just interested in teeing off on some of our guys."
Winship remains optimistic that Saanich will have a team that will compete with his group.
"When they have a full squad of 18 players, they’ll be a good team," he said. "But that’s not what happened."
The Thunder’s next regular-season game is set for June 17 in Saanich.
