Viking lacrosse grows in second season

Ryan Thevenot quickly fell in love with lacrosse three years ago and wanted to share that passion with his high school buddies.

The Grade 11 student’s father, Ben, approached Vincent Massey staff a few years back about adding the sport. When they agreed to get it going in 2024, Ryan did some hallway recruiting and managed to put together Massey’s first lacrosse team. Now in their second season, the Vikings are fitting right in with the Manitoba High School Field Lacrosse League’s Division 2.

The Vikings (2-3-0) beat the Shaftesbury Titans (1-2-1) in a 7-6 thriller on Sunday afternoon on home turf, then fell 6-4 to a strong Springfield Sabres squad (6-1-1) a few hours later.

“(Thevenot) was really pushing for guys to come out, and it’s a fun sport,” said Rhett Ryden, a Massey hockey and football player who tried the game for the first time in Grade 11.

“My friend’s from Saskatchewan and it’s a lot bigger there. He was really into it and kept trying to get me into it. I never really wanted to, kind of focused on hockey and football.”

Ryden’s certainly glad he joined. The senior — who’s maxing out his time in Viking purple with a few more weeks of lacrosse and a trip to track and field provincials for the pentathlon on June 5-7 — scored twice to give Massey a 3-2 halftime lead over Springfield.

One short mental lapse led to three Sabre goals early in the third quarter, souring an otherwise terrific day for the Vikings.

“We’re still learning but all these guys who have played before in Winnipeg, they’ve got five, six, seven years on us and we’ve got to start from scratch, start with the basics,” Ryden said. “We’ve still got lots to do but I think we’re getting a hold of it.

“The coaching staff’s really good. They really fight for us, work us and make sure we’re showing up.”

Thevenot and Vaughn McLeod, who opened and closed the scoring against Springfield, respectively, are the two Vikings with Team Manitoba experience. Thevenot led the team with 11 goals entering the weekend, following up a 34-goal season in just 10 games last year as the Vikings played in the league’s six-on-six division for smaller programs.

Since Massey moved up to Division 2 this year, playing 10-on-10 with stiffer competition, coach Rob Wilson said Thevenot and McLeod have been instrumental at practice to help raise the intensity and develop their teammates’ lacrosse IQ.

“We’ve got some really great kids on our team. A lot of them are taking a big jump playing this big sport that they’ve either never seen, (seen) very little of, have played very little of, or not at all,” Wilson said.

“They’ve done a really good job putting together what we do at practice, it’s just still a new sport out here. We need to continue seeing other teams, seeing other players to keep growing and developing.”

Wilson hopes to see the sport grow and eventually have teams at all three Brandon high schools but recognizes it’s still fairly new to the area. “Even the box (indoor) program’s been around for less than 10 years, so it’s a matter of trying to get kids involved,” Wilson said.

“Typically what I’ve found is you put a stick in a kid’s hand and they fall in love with it and they’ll give you a lot of years playing the sport. “It’s finding parents and coaches and people willing to give their time and help these kids that we need.”

The Vikings round out the regular season on Saturday against the league-leading River East Kodiaks in Winnipeg.

“(Coach) Ben (Thevenot) and myself really believe we can compete with any team in this league,” Wilson said. “For our guys, it’s building confidence and it’s tough when we’re the only team in town and we only see what we do at practice.”

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