The Saratoga Ventures Junior Ravens had a rough end to their season last weekend.
On Saturday the team made its last road trip of the season to Saanich to take on the Tigers.
The Victoria-based team gained some Jr. A Shamrock cuts to strengthen its bench and defeat the Ravens.
With a loss on the road on Saturday the Jr. Ravens came out on fire against the Penninsula Warriors at home on Sunday. In front of a large crowd at Rod Brind’ Amour Arena, Raven Adam Donald scored the first goal of the game on a pass from Tyson Fair less than two minutes into the first.
The Warriors came back with one of their own at 18:05 but only 30 seconds later the Ravens’ Hayden Smith came out with a marker to re-gain the lead for the Ravens off a pass from Eddy Lawson.
The boys in blue didn’t stop there when at 14:26 Arran Marlow got a nice pass from Lawson and put it in the meshing for the Ravens’ third. Lawson scored the Ravens’ fourth goal unassisted before Penninsula scored three quick goals to tie the game at 3-3. But Lawson got his second in a row to give the Ravens a 5-4 lead on the third place Warriors at the end of the first.
The Jr Ravens struggled to find the net for most of the second until the last minute of play when Smith scored for the Ravens. Penninsula, however, notched two of their own in the second leaving the end of the period in a 6-6 tie.
The Ravens played a lot of defence in the third as they ran into some penalty trouble and played shorthanded. Penninsula still scored four unanswered goals in the period, to make it a total of seven power play goals through the game to beat the Ravens in their final game.
Ravens head coach Reg Elgie noted the team has “grown a lot from last year and has developed as a team. We’re going and I feel that we will start next year at a pre-season level higher than I’ve ever had in Campbell River before.”
Huge effort to all the Jr Ravens for working hard on both offense and defence and to netminder Errol Adams for standing up tall between the pipes.
The Ravens would like to wish veterans Connor McLeod and Chris Vaux all the best in their future endeavors as they leave the Ravens bench after many years of minor and junior lacrosse in Campbell River, as well as a speedy recovery to netminder Logan Down and offensive player Brayden Howes who were both out this weekend due to injuries.
