Amid a backdrop of youth lacrosse players taking shots with their local heroes in green at Braefoot Park, theVictoria Shamrocks made some significant announcements Sunday.
The defending Western Lacrosse Association regular season champions confirmed snipers Rhys Duch and Corey Small as well as fast-rising attacker Chris Wardle will be back in the lineup for 2017. Between them they scored 104 goals, nearly half of the team’s total last season.
Shamrocks general manager Chris Welch called Duch and Small “the most lethal left-right offensive partnership in the sport of indoor lacrosse today.”
Duch, who grew up playing in the Braefoot lacrosse box with the Saanich Tigers, won virtually everything but the Mann Cup last season. His 101 points led the league, as did his 43 goals, production that earned him league MVP and first all-star team honours.
Team captain Small, who has finished in the top three in league scoring in all but his first year in the WLA, when he wound up sixth, won the title in 2015 and was second last year. Playing for the Vancouver Stealth in the pro National Lacrosse League, he currently leads the points list with 78 in 12 games, while teammate Duch sits in seventh with 60 points in 11 games.
Wardle, like Duch a local minor lacrosse product, will be looking to improve on a breakout third season with the club that saw him score 28 goals and 40 points in 18 games and add 25 more in 13 playoff games.
A winter-season forward with the Colorado Mammoth of the NLL – he lit up the Saskatchewan Rush with five goals on March 11 – he voiced confidence in the team’s makeup and chances of staying on top of the WLA this season. That, despite not knowing exactly who will be on the 2017 roster.
“Anybody we have out the front, out the back, in net, we know that they can produce and they can help us win,so we’re more than ready to compete this year,” he said.
Mike Simpson, a former Shamrocks player (1989-97) who was hired recently as assistant coach with a focus on offence, said the club is fortunate to have such talented offensive players to build around.
“Some of the young guys that we drafted put up big, big numbers in junior A and their job’s going to be to come in and get (veteran players’) respect,” he said. “If they can do that, they’ll find that they’ll get the ball in good spots and we’re going to be okay.”
In the 2017 WLA draft, the Shamrocks selected Evan Messenger seventh overall from B.C. Junior A League champion Delta Islanders. He finished third in regular season scoring (96 points, 20 games) and second in playoff scoring.
Victoria plucked veteran defender Dallas Wade and rookie forward Matthew Hamilton (44 pts.) in the third and fourth rounds from the junior ‘Rocks.
The Shamrocks open their WLA season at home May 19 against the Langley Thunder. The new game start time in Colwood is 7:30 p.m.
Season tickets are available online at victoriashamrocks.com, in person at 120-967 Langford Pkwy. or by phone at 250-478-7625.
editor@goldstreamgazette.com
