Each of the B.C. boys teams competing at national box lacrosse championships this summer will have a connection to the Cowichan Valley.
The Cowichan Valley Thunder will have one player on each of the B.C. teams at nationals: Colin Jeffrey on the midget team, Devyn Zunti in bantam, and Josh MacDonald in peewee.
The peewee and midget championships will take place at the same time, July 31-Aug. 6, in Whitby, Ont., and the bantam tournament will run from Aug. 2-6 in Saskatoon.
Jeffrey will suit up as one of the goalies for the B.C. midget team.
“It felt pretty good [to make the team],” he said. “It will be a good end to minor lacrosse for me.”
Jeffrey said he was a “little surprised,” to make the cut, even though he was in the midst of an outstanding season with the midget A2 Cowichan Thunder, landing him on the radar of several junior teams, which will be drafting players out of the junior ranks next February.
“There were a lot of good goalies there, but I felt pretty confident during tryouts,” Jeffrey said.
Jeffrey doesn’t know at this point how the goalie situation with Team B.C. will sort out, but he’s looking forward to suiting up.
“I think it will be a fun experience,” he said.
Although Jeffrey is the lone Cowichan player on the midget roster, the group does feature a total of five players from the Island, including two good friends of Jeffrey’s from the lacrosse academy at Claremont Secondary School in Victoria.
Jeffrey’s midget Thunder and Claremont teammate Nathan Clark made it as far as the final cuts for Team B.C. Although he didn’t make the provincial team, he was invited to play for the Vancouver Junior Stealth tournament team. Junior Stealth coach Curtis Hodgson was one of the evaluators for Team B.C., and was impressed with Clark at the tryouts.
Clark helped the Stealth to a silver medal at the Calgary Roughnecks Canada Day tournament, and will head to the USBOXLA Nationals in San Jose, California on Aug. 5-7 and the NLL Junior Tournament in Toronto on Aug. 16-28.
MacDonald will be in Whitby for the peewee tournament at the same time that Jeffrey is at the midget tournament, but wasn’t quite as surprised to make the final cut.
“I sort of figured,” admitted MacDonald, who scored three goals and had “a bunch of hits” in the last game of the peewee tryout camp.
MacDonald was born and raised in B.C., but his dad grew up playing lacrosse in Ontario, and he expects to have a lot of family in the stands for support.
It also worked out well that way for Zunti, who traces his roots to Saskatoon.
“That’s where my family is from, so they will all be there,” he said.
Zunti has also played in the national field lacrosse championships as a goalie, although he is a runner in box lacrosse. He had a simple strategy going into the bantam selection camp.
“I played my hardest,” he said.
