Six local athletes have helped power Team Ontario to two national lacrosse titles.
The current and former members of the Orillia Lady Kings lacrosse program were selected to represent the province at the U15 and U19 national championships last weekend in Calgary. The U19 team — featuring local athletes Jordan Kummer, Annie Lloyd, Jerica Obee and Paige Stachura — rolled over the competition, winning all five games to claim national glory.
“We felt, looking back on last year, the most significant opponent would be British Columbia,” said Pat Morris, a Lady Kings field lacrosse coach who was also chosen to coach Team Ontario’s U19 squad at nationals.
The B.C. players were older and had plenty of experience with box lacrosse, he noted, but Alberta ended up knocking its neighbours out of contention, setting up an Alberta-Ontario final.
In that championship game, Team Ontario was down 6-4 at the half. When the second half started, Alberta scored almost immediately, extending its lead to 7-4.
That’s when Morris and assistant coaches Carolyn Toll and Silvana Yee called a timeout, knowing a new game plan was needed if they were to recover from the deficit.
The new plan worked. Team Ontario scored six in a row to take a commanding 10-7 lead.
With three minutes remaining, Team Ontario opted for a “stall technique,” keeping possession of the ball without attempting to drive the opponents’ net.
That worked, too, and Team Ontario was crowned Canada’s best.
“For four local girls to make the team of 18 is an incredible achievement for a small organization in a small city,” Morris said.
He had praise for the performance of all four of them.
Lloyd, who attends and plays lacrosse for Queen’s University, “was a solid defender,” he said of the team captain.
Kummer, who will follow in Lloyd’s footsteps and play lacrosse for the Kingston school in September, “was a contributor in the midfield and on attack.”
Obee and Stachura, Morris said, were “major contributors to the offence.”
As a local guy, Morris was proud of those four athletes, but he knew it would take a team effort to come out on top. Team Ontario was made up of athletes from seven lacrosse organizations in the province. With that in mind, Morris set up a number of team-building exercises to create more cohesion among the players.
While lacrosse practice was a big part of that, the athletes also found themselves white-water rafting and overcoming a fear of heights.
They spent some time at the OPP gun range in Severn Township, completing drills and exercises while lugging around rubber rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests. Then, they individually rappelled from a tower while their teammates cheered them on.
“That takes a huge commitment of guts and courage,” Morris said.
That type of unconventional training was invaluable, he added.
“It’s a major contributor to building bonds between players,” Morris said. “You often see collections of individuals who, when it’s over, walk away in their own individual groups.”
Team Ontario prepared as one unit and left, victorious, as one unit.
Team Ontario’s U15 team, which includes Orillia Lady Kings Kayleigh Aiken and Emma Torkoff, captured the national title in its division, too.
