The Burnaby Jr. Lakers’ 2017 B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League regular season came to a conclusion in familiar fashion Friday.
For the seventh consecutive season, the Lakers will be post-season spectators and not participants. They finished in sixth place in the eight-team league with a 4-16-1 record after a 12-3 loss to the hometown Port Coquitlam Saints. The Lakers also finished the season with a nine-game losing streak.
Although only one spot out of the playoff picture, they weren’t even close. Burnaby’s nine points were 15 behind the two teams ahead of them, Victoria and Langley (12-9-0).
Despite the record, Lakers general manager Jaimie Scott felt the season was successful because the team was so young.
“Out of the 25 guys signed we had 15 either first-year juniors or still had intermediate age eligibility. We went young this year. We’re building for the future,” said Scott.
Having said that, Scott was exasperated his young troops left seven points on the floor against the two teams below the Lakers in the standings, Delta and Nanaimo.
While the seven points would not have put them into the playoffs, winning those games would have been beneficial to the team’s confidence, he said.
Scott likes the potential of goalie Elijah Uema-Martin, who has three years of junior left and performed well in his baptism by fire this season.
“He’s a stopper. There’s reaction goaltenders, and there’s just plain stoppers, and Bear, that’s his nickname, is a stopper. He lets the ball hit him, he doesn’t panic, he makes big saves,” said Scott.
Offensively, he’s pumped about left-hander Dylan Kaminsky, who had 21 goals and 12 assists in 10 games before getting injured. “He can power his way through the middle.”
Mason Pomeroy was the team’s top scorer for the season with 27 goals and 28 assists. His 55 points put him 16th in league scoring.
“He’s taken huge steps from last year to this year. I expect him to take another huge step next year,” said Scott.
Scott expects himself and the coaching staff, headed by Jason Dallavalle, to be back next year to continue working on the long-term rebuild project for a team that has fallen on hard times, and that used to dominate the BCJALL winning 12 consecutive league titles from 1996 to 2007.
“The coaching staff have done an amazing job keeping the motivation up,” said Scott. “It’s a five-year plan. We have a five-year plan that we’re just in year one really. We see improvement. We see enthusiasm. We see they’re not quitters. We see they don’t quit. Even if we’re down by five, they’ll scratch and crawl their way back to tie the game or winning the game.”
The Lakers will lose five players to graduation, but Scott said there are more talented kids on their way from the intermediate and midget ranks. “I’m always looking to improve.”
Kurtis Shum, Parker Johnson and Kyle Durec scored Burnaby’s goals Friday. Uema-Martin made 40 saves.
Victoria Shamrocks edged Langley Thunder 8-7 in a wild-card game Sunday and will play first-place Coquitlam Adanacs (20-1-0) in a best-of-five semifinal. The other semi will see second-place New Westminster Salmonbellies (16-5-0) playing PoCo (13-8-0).
