NLL Insider

Jason Donville, a coach with the Edge Ontario program and one of the folks responsible for bringing an MLL franchise to Toronto for 2009, has been keeping track of the Canadian presence in the field game so far this season, and will be filing regular dispatches on how our friends from up north are doing in ‘09.

I have changed the title of my weekly report slightly because I have now included the scoring stats on Canadian and Iroquois players in Divisions I, II and II – see attached spreadsheet. All told, there are 150 Canadian and Iroquois players playing in the NCAA in 2009 and this group includes players from seven different provinces! These 150 players have collectively scored 1,005 goals so far this year or 6.7 goals per player. However, if we remove the 29 goalies, defensemen and LPM’s from the mix, that number rises to 8.3 goals per player!

Keogh has a big week

Last week marks the halfway point in the NCAA season with most teams now focusing on league play (while their players focus on final exams). In terms of Canadians, there were relatively few notable performances last week with the exception of Stephen Keogh (Toronto) who had a big week for Syracuse. Last Tuesday, Keogh scored 4 goals in a 13 – 4 victory over Hobart and then scored another 5 goals in Syracuse’s come from behind victory over Loyola on Saturday. As an aside, evidently Alex Peaty (Victoria) was quite strong in net for Loyola in the same game.

Greer still scoring in bunches

In terms of aggregate scoring numbers, Zack Greer (Whitby) continues to lead all Canadian Div I scorers with 30 goals and 19 assists in eleven games for a 4.5 point a game pace. Corey Small (St Catherines) is second with 4 points a game but is injured and has only played 5 games so far this year. Keogh is in third place with 3.8 points a game followed by Garrett Billings (Langley) who in 4th place in scoring amongst the Canucks. Billings is averaging 3.7 points a game but had a quiet week with just one assist in the Virginia victory over Maryland which incidentally was the longest game in NCAA lacrosse history (7 OT periods!). Joel Dalgarno (Port Coquitlam) of Ohio State also stands at 3.7 points per game but was also relatively quiet in a loss to Colgate and a win over Quinnipiac last week

McClure has 29 goals in seven games!

In the NCAA division II a number of Canadians’ are having big years. John McClure (Brampton) has scored 29 goals in seven games and is averaging 5.4 points per game for Dowling (south shore of Long Island). Danny Farmer from Calgary is also having a strong season for Mars Hill (Asheville, North Carolina) with 36 goals in ten games. Stephen Leblanc from Restoule, Ontario is scoring at a 4.5 point per game pace for Queens University of North Carolina and proving once again that great lacrosse players can come from small communities throughout this great country. Restoule is just south of North Bay, Ontario.

Matt Quinton has already scored 39 goals this year!

There are presently 36 Canadians playing in the NCAA Div III. Brad Levick (Newmarket) plays for Elmira (about 2 hours south of Rochester, NY) and has scored 21 goals in 5 games and is averaging 5.4 points per game. Matt Quinton (Elora) has also been extremely productive, scoring 39 goals in 11 games for Roanoke. Aaron Fill (Ladner) has 20 points in 5 games for Becker while Andrew Stoner (Orangeville) has put up 24 goals for Lycoming so far this year.

SFU still undefeated

The talk in lacrosse circles in BC is that the current SFU team is perhaps the best ever. The team easily handled Portland State on Saturday but has a tougher opponent this Friday in the University of Oregon, which is also undefeated and ranked 8th nationally. Ben Towner continues to be the big gun for SFU, having scored 60 goals and 10 assist in 14 games. Looking ahead, while there are no more home games for SFU this year they could sure use your support in Tacoma on the May 2nd-3rd weekend for the PNCLL Championships. For those lacrosse fans that live in Southern Ontario, games close to home this Saturday include Harvard at Cornell in Ithaca (3.5 hours from Toronto), Princeton at Syracuse (4 hours from Toronto) and Mount St Mary’s at Canisius (1 hour from Toronto).

Nationals looking to add rookies

The Toronto Nationals have two draft picks in the first round and there is widespread speculation as to how they will use those picks. Top Guns like Greer, Small, Billings and Delgarno will almost certainly be of interest to the Toronto Nationals while at the same time a long pole such as Sid Smith and a goalie such as Alex Peaty would also be interesting additions to the Toronto line-up. Seniors playing in Div II and Div III should also be of interest including Stephen LeBlanc, Brad Levick and Greg Norris. The Nationals home opener is only about eight weeks away and it is my guess that 2-3 Canadian players that you are reading about in this blog on a regular basis will have a legitimate shot at making the team this year. On that note, the National’s GM Stu Brown is finalizing his player signings this week and will soon be able to add a few more names to the list that is already circulating. There is at least one big signing in the works so stay tuned for details. The Nationals kick off their season on the 22nd of May at BMO Field and it should be a great night for Canadian Lacrosse! Tickets can be purchased by calling your club ticket rep (and that way the sales commission goes back your club team) or via the internet at tickets@nationalslacrosse.com.

NCAA Division I

Ranked by Points Per Game

NCAA Div II

ranked by points per game

NCAA Div III

ranked by points per game

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