Ridge Meadows Burrards teams will almost certainly be wearing some hardware, after hosting the BCLA Minor Box Lacrosse Female Provincial Championships this weekend, at Planet Ice and Pitt Meadows arenas.
At press time on Thursday, Ridge’s four teams had gone six-for-six in their opening games.
Organizer Marian Lesser explained the 24-team event features six teams in each of four divisions – pee wee, bantam, midget and junior. They will play five games, in a true round-robin format. Then, the top two teams will play off for provincial gold and silver, and the third/fourth place teams will meet for silver.
The golden games will be at Planet Ice on Sunday, starting with the pee wees at 8:45 a.m., bantams at 10:45 a.m., midgets at 12:45 p.m. and juniors at 2:45 p.m.
The bronze games will be at Pitt Meadows, at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. (starting with pee wees, ending with juniors).
Lesser said the Burrards are one of the strongest associations in the tournament, and should be favoured to at least medal in every division.
The Burrards opened the event on Wednesday, with four wins over Nanaimo teams. The Pee wees won 9-7, the Bantams 18-2, the midgets 7-0 and the juniors 6-0.
On Thursday morning the winning continued, with the pee wees beating a tough New Westminster team 5-4, and the bantams coming from behind to beat Langley 7-5.
Lesser said lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports for girls in B.C., as the girls went from playing on boys teams to having their own female division.
She said spectators will find that it’s an entertaining brand of lacrosse, particularly at the junior division, which includes women aged 16-21.
This is Maple Ridge’s first time hosting the provincials.