With only one loss under their belts the Lacoka Warriors girls’ Bantam hockey team is having a good start to their season.
The girls sit with a 6-1-3 record having lost their first game 4-3 to Stettler Sunday, Nov. 16. Many of the players are in their first official year as bantam players but have several years under their belts playing at this level, explained head coach Mark Sieben. “Half our team last year was Peewee aged playing Bantams.”
He says his daughter was brought up to play at the Bantam level for three years before finally being old enough for the Bantam team.
Sieben feels they have some strong potential for the next few years as there will be only three players graduating to the Midget level of girls’ hockey.
“For a girls’ team, we’ve got lots of sizes and strength there,” said Sieben.
One player has never even played hockey before but her skills come from years of figure skating. The Warriors play a 28 game schedule and have played 10 games so far. Sieben says his goal is to keep his team focussed on staying at the top of the league considering the other teams are going to do their best to defeat the Warriors.
“That’s something that we’ve been talking to the kids about. They have to come ready to play because people are going to see that,” said Sieben.
He says their toughest opponents are Stettler and Camrose who have both lost one game this season. The Warriors have this weekend off and then they play Stettler in Ponoka Saturday, Nov. 29 and Nov. 30 they play Camrose in Lacombe.
During their Friday game in Ponoka against Wainwright, the Warriors tied 3-3.