Lions take home title at weekend jamboree in Lacombe

Over a past weekend the Sylvan Lake Lions Football team was at the 2^nd annual Lacombe Raiders Bantam North -South Jamboree. The team consisted of 24 players who have beenpracticing during the spring training camp for the two weeks leading up to the day. The Jamboree is three pool games and one playoff game. Each game is 50 minutes long with eachteam getting 10 plays to score as many touch downs as they can starting from the 45 yard line. If time allowed they would each get another 10 plays.

There were eight teams in total, broken into two pools. North Division had Hunting Hills (Red Deer), Rocky Mountain House, Sylvan Lake and Lacombe. The South Division had LindsayThurber (Red Deer), Ponoka, Springbank and Drumheller. Each pool played to shake out placings, that lead into the one cross over playoff game. 1^st place played 1^st and 2^nd played 2^ndetc.

The day had the Lions start against Rocky Mountain House who were strong, but the Lions came out on top. The next team they faced was from Hunting Hills who looked veryintimidating with their 45 players. The Lions played very strong against Hunting, winning very convincingly. The last pool game was against the home team, the Lacombe Raiders who hada smaller body count than Sylvan, having only two subs on their sidelines. The Lions played really hard against Lacombe to win this game as well, placing them first for their pool.

The last game of the day was the cross over against the North team that ended up being Lindsay Thurber. The team started on defence first, keeping their opponent from scoring. Thenon the offence the Lions got off to a quick lead getting two touch downs. The Thurber team fought a tough battle, but just couldn’t shut down the strong Lions team.

Coach Vic Sloboda was very happy with how the team performed all day long. There were some amazing catches, blocks, runs, throws and picks made throughout the day. Both offenceand defence played really well throughout. The field temperature on the turf was +36 so it was incredibly hot to be playing but the team stayed hydrated and strong.

The team that was fielded was: Ewan Ballantyne 85, Brian Bott 24, Reuben Braitenbach 17, Warren Stewart - Brown 44, Daxton Bylsma 18, Dalton Carbert 50, Brodey Duperon 68, StevenFuchihara 34, Jacob Gauvin 42, Sam Jones 35, Arden Kasha 66, Derek Keller 53, Taylor Lunde 64, Morgan MacNeil 62, Cole Matthews 55, Matthew McDiarmid 12, Nolan Mearns 15,Brandon Moore 8, Cody Peever 25, Zion Pham 6, Joel Screpnek 11, Joshua StPierre 56, Aydan Waters 13, Diezel West 9.

Coaches included: Vic Sloboda (head coach), supporting coaches Dan Johnson, Chris McKenna, Geoff Rambaut, Jeremy Braitenbach and TJ Sloboda.

Big thank you to the parents who came out to cheer the team on and an even bigger thanks to the coaches and to the team manager Tammy Balantyne and trainer Keri Gauvin for takingcare of the team in that relentless heat.