NLL Insider

New Westminster Salmonbellies forward Tyler Digby

We’ve crowned three Money Baller kings since NLL Insider went live just prior to the start of the ‘08 National Lacrosse League season.

Athan Iannucci (NLL ‘08), Cody Jamieson (Jr. A ‘09) and Mark Steenhuis (NLL ‘09) have all taken the honour, and this summer we’ll name the Jr. A game’s most clutch ball player again, looking at results from BC, Alberta and Ontario, all the way up to the Minto Cup (regular season and playoff edition).

With over 100 games in the books in those three provinces and 429 players tagged with a clutch point across the board, after the jump, check out who sits at the top of the clutch leaderboard (FYI, it’s the guy you’re looking at right now).

For those new to the Money Ball game, and those unfamiliar with the slightly different set-up of the junior loop versus the pros, here’s a quick breakdown of what’s going down over the next couple months.

The Money Ballers is a weighted scoring system, where goals (and assists) that have tied a game, pushed a team ahead or won the contest are awarded a series of points, allotted to the guy that scored ‘em (or helped out on ‘em). As the game progresses, points for goals and helpers increases.

Unlike the NLL, OT in the summer months is a bit different. The boys up here play a full extra period no matter if zero goals are scored or if a hundred goals are scored. There’s no sudden death and like we’ve seen a couple times this year already, if it’s still knotted after OT, it stays tied.  And for those really outta the summer ball loop, we play three 20 minue periods, versus the NLL’s four quarters of 15. Canucks are crazy like dat.

Below, check out what’s worth what, and like we did during the NLL season, we’ve tagged on an extra point to the OT game winners column, just to make things a little more interesting.

So the guys that have impressed so far?

New Westminster Salmonbellies hulking forward, Tyler Digby, is rippin’ up the charts. Likely not too many lax fans outside of BC have heard of Digby, whose father Darrell won a Mann Cup with the Sr. Bellies, but football fans outside of the province may have heard of him. Although Digby is already laying claim to being one of the junior games top clutch snipers, the Salmonbellies power forward will actually be at Robert Morris (NCAA I-AA) on a scholarship playing tight end for the school (wll also be playing field lacrosse for the Colonials too), and has a promising football career ahead of him.

Anyways, Digby has scored four game winning goals for the Bellies, who this past week ranked fourth in NLL Insider’s National Jr. A Ranking, three of which have come in the final frame. Half of New West’s wins have come off of Digby’s twig.

Also knotted up with Digby at the top of the charts is St. Catharines Athletics attacker, Andrew Potter, who has already spent time with both Rochester and Colorado in the NLL. Potter scored the game winner in the A’s monstrous win over the Orangeville Northmen last night, a result that will surely shakeup the national rankings Monday afternoon.

Last year, while the Alberta junior loop was busy launching their new junior-only specific web site, guys playing in either Edmonton or Calgary weren’t in the mix all summer due to a lack of availability of game stats. This year they are, and a trio of ‘em have already crashed the party. Leading the Alberta contingent are Calgary Raiders’ Casey MacIntyre and Chad Mitchell, while Edmonton Eclipse captain, Simon Giourmetakis, also made the cut-off.

Anyways, we’ll get into more indepth coverage as the season moves on, but for now, check out the leaderboard below. All games in each province as of last night (minus the Edmonton Eclipse vs. Outlaws game) have been included.

Weekly Leaders

Week 1: Tyler Digby (New Westminster) & Andrew Potter (St. Catharines)

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