Winless Barracudas strive to improve in challenging season

By Lethbridge Herald on July 7, 2023.

Players from the Lethbridge Barracudas junior B lacrosse team run down the floor during practice at the Coaldale Sportsplex on Thursday. Herald Photo by Justin Seward

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Barracudas Junior B Tier I  lacrosse team have gone through a fair share of ups and downs in what has been a challenging season for the team.

The struggles include the team going winless through their first 16 games, having dealt with a lot of injuries, saw a midseason coaching change and having a younger group this season have all been factors in this diffcult year.

“It is an interesting year,” said Mike Bryski, a first-year assistant coach with the Barracudas.

“On paper, you know, the record obviously, this is not where we want to be at this time of the year. So from that perspective, in terms of sort of pure wins-losses, yeah it’s a tough year. You know having said that you know, the record doesn’t always reflect kind of what’s happening within the team, the team dynamic, the work of the players, the work of the coaches, the interaction between coaches and players.  Like I can’t just  look at the season and say, oh it’s just been a terrible season (and) that there’s nothing good to take away from it. You know, quite the opposite actually. Yeah, it’s been a challenging season and I would say for coaches and players alike.”

Bryski said the challenging part of a difficult season is staying motivated.

“Obviously, our objective is we want our players to improve every game,” he said.

“We want to get better every game of the season. At some point, you start shifting into it’s like  OK, so now we’re kind of looking forward, too. You know, the players spend typically three or four years playing at this level and so we start looking at, well,  development is also you start shifting to kind of what are the long-term objectives here as well.”

Bryski says the players want to be here.

“They want to work,” he said.

“If things aren’t going well, they want to clean that part of the game up. They want to learn; they want to get better too. So, they kind of give that back to the coaches as well.”

As for on the bench, Bryski believes the challenge for the coaches is to shift to more constructive criticism.

“It would be easy to get upset (and) it would be easy to start yelling,” he said.

“I mean sometimes that’s going to happen anyways. You know emotions run high during a game. But maybe, you know, part of the shift for coaches is, it’s like OK, so you know keep on working on you know the objective (which) is improving, right. We still want to get better every game and if getting better every game means going from sort of middle of the pack to top of the pack, or if means … going (from) the bottom of the pack to the middle of the pack, then so be it. So, I think for us, it’s trying to say as constructive on the bench and trying to clean up.”

The impression Bryski has had from the coaches that have been with the club a little longer is that this year was not a full on rebuilding year, but a building year.

“I think realistically we kind of looked at this year as, like yeah this is a year where we’re back at an earlier point in that cycle, where you know our objective here now is to get better over the next year or two,” he said.

Assistant captain and graduating player Thoran Malitowski spoke about leading a team through a challenging year.

“Yeah obviously it’s been a challenging year so far,” said Malitowski.

“Leading a team through a season like this is definitely difficult (and) kind of finding your way. I feel like as a leader on the team, the role kind of changes all the time. This is my first year ever losing this badly, usually it’s the other way around. So honestly it’s been a bit of learning curve for me. But I do think the overall experience is still a positive experience. Sure we’re still yet to get a win on the record, but I feel like lots of guys have made improvements on and off the floor, even it’s not improving the skills and the game. You know, either they made a good friend or you know interactions.”

Malitowski said obviously there’s going to be times where the composure is lost.

“But I think the team like has been doing pretty good,” he said.

“I mean throughout the season there have been games where the bench has been a lot different, you know, where we’re really quiet, we’re not talking much, we get to the bench (and)  we’re begged and we don’t even want to get back out on the floor. But when we were like that, we realized it, and we took action to move in a positive direction.”

The Barracudas will look for their  first win tonight as they host Edmonton Tier I Warriors at the Coaldale Sportsplex at 6 p.m.