For just the third time in club history, Chilliwack Minor Lacrosse has produced a provincial champion. CMLA’s peewee B crew took the title last weekend, joining the 2012 bantam B and 1996 peewee C teams in the record book.
Chilliwack started slow with an 8-7 round-robin loss to Alberni Valley, but rebounded to win their next two games.
The Mustangs topped Surrey 11-5 and Penticton 7-4 to finish second in their pool. They faced the first place team in the other pool, and dumped Juan de Fuca 9-6.
That landed them in the gold-medal match against Abbotsford. The back and forth game went right down to the final buzzer, with Chilliwack escaping with 9-7 win.
Nathaniel Leroux earned tournament MVP honours, Josh Abel was given all-star recognition and Jeremiah Gibbs received the Fair Play award.
The locals went 13-4-3 during a 20 game regular season schedule and started their march to provincials in early July.
Chilliwack toppled Langley 2-1 in a best-of-three series and punched their provincial ticket with a 9-8 win over Ridge Meadows on July 9.
The full roster includes: Noah Choi, Isaac Rychtowski, Brock Lamotte, Ryder Wootten, Hayden Nerbus, Danny Ortutay, Matty Ortutay, Myles Durflinger, Zereno Pierini, Olivia White, Layne Young, Austin Charleton, Gage Oniell, Josh Rideout, Emi Powers and Kyle Bonato.
The team is coached by Nick Kojima and assistants Mike Ortutay, Sarah Paradis and Simon Traskey, with Krista White managing.