The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
u15 team takes tournament title
by Stan Cola
The West Elk Warriors lacrosse club closed out their spring season with a tournament in Durango last weekend with the u15 team taking the tournament title.
The u12 team saw a rise in success over the course of the season. Eighteen players signed up and played four tournaments in a row the past four weekends.
They started in Grand Junction with only two weeks of practice and did not win any games. That tournament showed their weak spots that they then focused on in practice and saw immediate improvement as they headed to Vail and won three out of four games with wins against Grand Valley, Summit and the North Colorado Vipers. The only loss was against the tournament winners, the Roaring Fork Swarm.
In Aspen, the following weekend the u12 squad again went 3-1, with wins against Vail, Summit Stix and the Grand Valley Spartans. They closed things out last weekend in Durango at the Durango Mountain Melee. The team started off slow and lost to rival Telluride in the opening game. Instead of hanging their heads, the West Elk Warriors fought back to win their next four games. Wins came against Duke City (Albuquerque) 4-2, a Los Alamos/El Paso all star team 6-2, Rio Rancho 14-1, and once more against the Los Alamos/El Paso team 9-1.
The u15 squad capped their season with an outstanding showing in Durango. They won three games and tied one before falling to Durango 3-0. But their record earned the Warriors a spot in the finals and a rematch with Durango and they made the most of it, edging out a 3-2 win for the tournament title.
