Survival School finals-bound

The Kahnawake Survival School (KSS) Akweks will have a chance to right last year’s wrong against Stanstead College in the Greater Montreal Athletic Association (GMAA) field lacrosse final next Tuesday, after taking down College Jean-de-Brebeuf 13-6 on Tuesday at home.

“We’re hungry, we’re ready to get payback,” said Akweks lacrosse coach Al Jones.

Stanstead had beaten Kahnawake 14-4 in last year’s finals, and beat Beaconsfield Highschool 11-1 this week to advance to the finals.

“We need some redemption here, and I’m confident our boys are ready, so we’ll see what happens.”

Jones said they nearly found themselves on the other side of a payback scenario on Tuesday against Brebeuf, whom they had beaten 12-7 in regular season play.

“Their energy was definitely at a higher level, because they wanted payback,” said Jones.

He said that Brebeuf had been KSS’s toughest opponent during the regular season, and it was no different in the first half of Tuesday’s game, with the two teams being deadlocked.

“It was definitely a hard-fought game, we were going neck and neck, and it was definitely stressful,” said Jones.

In the second half, though, KSS started to pull away, ultimately winning by seven goals.

Jones said that the box lacrosse background of many of his players helped with depth and the energy levels of his players, as he would shift players from attack to defense and vice versa because he was confident in their ability to play at any position and be able to both attack and defend effectively.

Because he could switch tired players from defense to attack when needed, he said his players still had a lot left in the tank when Brebeuf started to run on empty.

Another advantage to having a team as deep as KSS does is being able to generate offense when players are being tightly covered or double-teamed, as was the case with his son, Darris Jones.

“They knew he’s a leading scorer, so they would try to shut him off, they were looking to double-team him. I’ve taught him and taught our whole team that it’s fine if you get doubled, we want that. We actually want that,” said Al.

“These teams don’t realize that. But when you double the ball and put two men on, then someone is open, and all we did was find that person that was open and put it on goal and put it in the net.”

Towards the end of the game, seemingly frustrated with the failure of their gameplan, Brebeuf players started taking bad penalties from hitting KSS players.

Again, coming from box lacrosse, that’s something KSS players are used to, and they stayed disciplined and did not take retaliatory penalties.

“They’re used to physical play, and there’s not much that will make them get intimidated. So, they took the beating and took the win,” said Al.

KSS themselves have had to tone down their play, with many players having experience from Hunters’ games, as the referees in field lacrosse don’t let the same things fly that would in box lacrosse - and that will be especially important against Stanstead’s lethal offense.

The finals game will be played on Tuesday, June 3, at 4 p.m. at KSS, as Stanstead was unavailable for their original May 29 finals date.

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