The Red Deer Rampage are just weeks away from the start of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (RMLL) Junior B Tier I season.
With 17 of their 22-man roster returning from last year, the Rampage are well positioned to repeat as Central Division champions.
Head coach Troy Tisdale said they’re fortunate to return so many from last season.
“The expectation is high. We have our sights set on getting to the Founder’s Cup, the national championship,” Tisdale said.
“We feel we have a team that can repeat what we did last year so we’re gunning for that. Obviously, that’s our long-term goal but first off we really want to win our division, get to provincials, and move from there.”
The offseason plan was to field a bigger roster after they ran into injury trouble on the tail end of last season. They’ve added players through their team tryouts in the offseason as well as through the draft. They also added two players who played for them for a brief period as call-ups last season.
“We’ve got a pretty good veteran squad so we’re pretty excited about the season,” Tisdale said. “We’ve added three younger players and a couple of 19-year-olds.”
The Rampage entered the playoffs last year after finishing third out of four teams in the standings in the central division with a 9-11 record.
They swept the Calgary Chill in the first round before upsetting the league-best Rockyview Silvertips to win the RMLL Junior B Tier I Central Division championship.
Red Deer then headed to provincials to compete for the Larry Bishop Memorial Cup in Beaumont where they went 1-3 in four games.
They’re hoping that gained experience will help them this year.
“We feel that if we’re healthy and we’re dressing our full roster we expect to win our division outright,” he said.
This season the Rockyview Silvertips, who are in the same division as the Rampage, will host provincials. That means even if the Rampage finish in second to the Silvertips in the Central Division, they’ll still secure a spot in provincials.
However, they’d still like to take that top spot because they’ll get a bye through the first round of the playoffs. It won’t come easy as they expect the Silvertips to have a very strong squad this year.
“To do that we’re going to have to have at least a 16-4 season if not a 17-3,” he said. “We’re going to have to be dedicated to every game and put up wins to do that.”
Red Deer expects to be strong defensively once again but is also welcoming back starting goaltender Carson Wells to the lineup. He was an integral part of the Rampage’s success last year and was even called up to compete at nationals for the Edmonton Warriors.
“He proved himself last year that he was probably the number one goalie in the league and he had a great season,” Tisdale said.
“He’s a top-notch goalie so starting on the back end we definitely have the goaltending and all-round our team is quite strong. We don’t have a lot of holes we just need to score a little bit more. We had a tough time putting the ball in the net last year.”
This weekend the Rampage will play an exhibition game in Beaumont against the Outlaws on Sunday at 4:45 p.m.
They’ll then open the regular season on Sunday, April 28 at home against the Calgary Chill at 5 p.m. at the Dawe Community Centre.