Sheen hits milestone with Chaos

By Lethbridge Herald on July 18, 2023.

Janna Federkeil Photo Southern Alberta Chaos' Austin Sheen passes the ball during a game this season.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge’s Austin Sheen of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League’s Southern Alberta Chaos Tier 2 Junior B  team had a regular season to remember.

Sheen accomplished the team’s first ever individual scoring milestone when he hit the 100-point mark in the club’s second year of existence.

Sheen, who is one of the Chaos’s founding players, finished with 103 points (43 goals and 60 assists) which was good enough for second in the league behind Cranbrook’s Fletcher Blackshell-Jones and for the second year in a row, he led the league in assists.

He was first in points among Alberta players.

“I couldn’t have done it without my teammates getting open for me for a pass or them feeding me inside for a shot,” said the 19-year-old forward.

Sheen reached the milestone on Sunday on the road in High River.

“Well pre-game, some of the players were talking about it and I was 12 points away,” he said.

“So I didn’t think I was going to get it and then as the game started going, I had three goals in like the first 10 minutes and everyone was rolling. So the ball kept finding the back of the net and the points kept going up.”

Sheen surpassed the 100-point mark as he accumulated 15 points by the end of the game.

Chaos coach Jared Capner didn’t think this was a common trend in the league for a player to hit 100 points.

“In the league this year, (there) was only two guys that hit 100 points,” he said.

“One of them being Fletcher, who is in Cranbrook, and then Austin who’s with us there. And I mean when you look at the stats coming out of the north divisions, I think the most points coming out of the north was I think like 82 or 83 or something like that. So, you know, he’s 20 points ahead of anybody in the north as far as that goes. So, yeah, it’s a huge accomplishment for him and it speaks wonders to his development as a lacrosse player this year.”

Sheen finished last year with a 70 points and thought that was going to be hard to beat.

“And then as the season got rolling, the team started to find its stride, and with the team finding its stride, more goals started to happen. So the points just started building up,” said Sheen.

Capner saw Sheen click right away with a couple of other players.

“Which made it a lot easier for everybody in the end,” said Capner.

“You know anytime you have people trying to compete for certain positions, you’re actually going to have a little bit of pushback. And you know the guys this year, they all really rallied around Austin, I would say. You know, we chose him to be an assistant captain because we felt he had a lot of good qualities on the floor and off the floor and then with that, he held himself at a very high level when he’s on the floor and you know he sees the floor very well. He sees the guys and he puts it in their stick and you know he gets guys the opportunity  to score but vice versa if he gets his opportunities, he’s going to put the ball in the net as well.”

The Chaos are opening up playoffs in Cochrane on Saturday.

The Chaos are made up players all over southern Alberta.