The Victoria Junior Shamrocks are a hungry bunch, and this weekend, they’d like nothing better than to sink their teeth into the Delta Islanders. Beginning on Saturday, the teams will do battle in a best-of-three quarter-final B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League playoff. Game 1 should have meant home-floor advantage for the ’Rocks, but, thanks to the Rock the Shores concert at Juan de Fuca this weekend, Victoria will open the postseason at Panorama Recreation Centre, facing off at 5:30 p.m.
The displacement is something the Shamrocks will have to live with, however, and captain Brody Eastwood wasn’t fazed at practice this week. Eastwood said the boys are fired up about playoffs, and happy to be starting with a clean slate, after a bit of a topsy turvy, injury-riddled season. “We have a lot of third-years hungry for the next level,” said Eastwood, a senior on a roster packed with players in their final year of juniors. “We’re getting antsy.”
Victoria and the Langley Thunder finished the regular schedule with identical records (14-7-0), but the Thunder took the season series and the third seed. Up 1-0 over the Port Coquitlam Saints in the other quarter-final, Langley is looking to finish off the Saints tonight. Both the Coquitlam Adanacs (17-4-0) and New Westminster Salmonbellies (16-5-0), who’ve bulked up for a run at the Minto Cup national Junior A championship, earned byes through the first round of playoffs.
The Cup, which begins Aug. 17 in New West, is a round-robin format, featuring the top-two teams in B.C., plus the Alberta and Ontario champions. Obviously, that’s where the Shamrocks want to be. But taking care of Delta (11-10-0) is the first order of business.
“We can score goals, but our defence has to be strong,” Shamrocks coach Nirmal Dillon said. “Last time [we played Delta], we won 17-16 in overtime, and we can’t have that. There was no defence at all.”
The return of big guy Brandan Smith to the lineup should help considerably with defence. Smith, six-foot-three and 230 pounds, has been recovering from a broken hand, and happily is back sooner than expected.
As far as goal scoring, the ’Rocks have an impressive group.
Among them, Chris Wardle — an all-around player Dillon can put anywhere on the floor — scored 46 goals, Eastwood picked up 42 markers in 14 games, and Devon Casey had 22 goals and 65 assists. Then there’s the team’s points leader, Jesse King, who had 34 goals in 15 games. When he wasn’t scoring, King passed for 77 assists, helping the Shamrocks to a whopping 75 power-play goals, by far the best in the league.
“Jesse is a killer sending the ball around,” Eastwood said. “He controls the ball so well, and he sees the floor great.”
Delta traded away two of their top scorers at the deadline, but the remaining players are determined to prove they shouldn’t be discounted as Minto Cup contenders.
The Islanders still have plenty of depth, as well as three competent goaltenders.
But the Shamrocks also have something to prove, after getting knocked out in the first-round last season. Their last Minto Cup appearance was in 2008.
“Motivation is easy,” Eastwood said. “For us third years, being our last season, we want to do something.”
