Akweks undefeated in regular season
Kahnawake Survival School’s third win of the year came in a battle against their rivals Howard S. Billings. Courtesy Brandon Bordeau
After a very strong regular season, the Kahnawake Survival School (KSS) Akweks are looking to convert their undefeated season into a finals win, after losing in last year’s finals against Stanstead College.
KSS lacrosse head coach Al Jones said that the playoffs will be a different beast than a regular season that saw the team win by 10 or more goals three out of four times, but he is not looking to change the game plan drastically for his team.
“I’m a big believer that we don’t fix what’s not broken,” said Jones.
“Right now, it’s working with our systems, so we’re just going to stick to it.”
Last week saw the Akweks win twice on the road, beating Beaconsfield High School 16-6 and their next-door neighbours, the Howard S. Billings Blazers, 21-6.
In the Blazers game, things got heated between the teams as the Akweks were running away with the game, resulting in an impromptu wrestling match between two players. Both players were ejected and suspended, Jones said, and both teams lost their fair play points for the game, which ended up being the difference in the standings as both KSS and Stanstead finished with perfect records – but Stanstead had all their ethics points.
For Jones, the biggest challenge was their game this week against College Jean-de-Brebeuf at home, winning that game 12-7 but starting the game down 3-1.
Jones said that KSS arrived later for the game than they wanted, missing out on warmups while Brebeuf arrived 90 minutes before the game, meaning the Akweks more or less used the first portion of the game as their warmup period.
“They came out a little slow, even to get dressed. Into the second period, we start calming down, and we started to get back to our game plan,” said Jones.
They didn’t look back, eventually taking the lead and keeping it, capping off their perfect regular season.
Jones credits his assistant coach Louis Delisle with helping settle the team down after Brebeuf’s strong start.
“He’s very good with the mental part of the game, he’s seen it all. He said to make the easy passes easy, just make things easy,” said Jones.
He is quite happy with how the team has done so far, but knows their job is not done quite yet.
“Though I didn’t shoot for going undefeated, these boys are just so talented that they make it easy on the field to implement our structured offense and defense, and they just run it to a tee. Now we have another season coming up, which is the playoffs. Phase one is complete, but we clearly have another step ahead of us,” said Jones.
Al’s son Darris, who plays on the team, said that skill alone won’t be enough to win in the playoffs, and they can’t expect to win their games by double-digit goals like in the regular season.
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“We’re very good, obviously, but there are some things we can work on. We’re maybe being a little overconfident. The playoffs will be tough; it is not a given. Teams like Stanstead, they try very hard, they have more heart than anyone,” said Darris.
“We need to work on teamwork, that’s it. We have the skill, but in big games, the teamwork needs to shine. Hustle and drive will beat skill every time, and we need to capitalize and work hard to beat these teams in playoffs.”
The Akweks’ first playoff game will be played at home next Tuesday at 4 p.m. At time of writing, their opponent has yet to be determined.
