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Junior Lakers soak up Ridge Meadows talent at entry draft

The Burnaby junior Lakers took stock and restocked its shelves at last week’s B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League entry draft.
Joel McCormick
Maple Ridge native and Burnaby junior Lakers draft pick Joel McCormick, at right, was a member of Team B.C., which finished second at last summer's national midget box lacrosse championships.

The Burnaby junior Lakers took stock and restocked its shelves at last week’s B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League entry draft.

The draft, where the league’s eight teams get to select first-year junior-aged players from the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island that reside in communities without a BCJALL club, saw 48 players selected.

With most of this year’s top-level talent coming from the Ridge Meadows program, it’s no surprise that four of Burnaby’s first five picks were Ridge-Meadows talents. The Burrards produced seven of the eight first round picks in this year’s draft.

They selected Joel McCormick with the third overall pick. A member of Team B.C. this past summer that won bronze at the national midget championships, McCormick, is considered a two-way player with strong defensive skills. As a Grade 8 athlete at Samuel Robertson Technical in 2016, McCormick ran for six touchdowns to lead his team to a B.C. football title.

With a pick acquired from Nanaimo, the Lakers took another Ridge Meadows player, Rhys Marshall, fifth overall. In the second round, they used the 14th overall selection to take Ethan M’Lot, also of Ridge Meadows.

In the third round, Burnaby had a pair of picks, and used them to take Richmond’s Joshua Fenske-White and Ridge’s Braiden Balatti.

With four selections in the fourth round, the Lakers grabbed Abbotsford’s Liam Hoogstraten and a pair of Mission players, Gurkirat Gill and Carsen Barker.

They would round out the event by drafting North Van’s Ethan Mey and Kaden Johnson and Mission’s Owen Leary.