Warriors Roundup: August 2024

Playoff lacrosse matchups featured Vancouver Warriors throughout August with BCJALL and OJLL playoffs, Minto Cup, WLA playoffs and the PLL season wrapping up. 

August also saw Warriors adorned with awards for their impacts on and off the floor and field. 

You won’t want to miss Owen Grant in front of the camera for Warriors’ social, getting all the latest info at community events. 

In the Community 

To kick off August, the Warriors joined their Canucks family to show their support for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in the Pride Parade. 

Happy Pride, Vancouver 🌈 https://t.co/0OcxD1uTfA

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 5, 2024

Owen Grant was seen around Kits Fest meeting fans and discussing all things Olympics, plus tested some Kits Fest go-ers about the history of lacrosse in the Olympic Games.  

"Lacrosse is coming to the Olympics!" 🥍

Owen Grant hits up KitsFest with @thesportsbar_ra last weekend to talk lax and the Olympics! 🎤 pic.twitter.com/sJ9DwoljDX

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 19, 2024

OG also helped coach at a lacrosse camp at Simon Fraser University on August 17th which was a great success. 

The temperature is cooling down and the days are getting shorter which means summer’s coming to an end and so are the Weeknight Warriors Evo Cinema Series at Stanley Park. The summer of movie nights wrapped up in August with four movies and through two months of the summer series, the Warriors met a lot of fans and introduced more people to the sport. 

Registration opened for the Vancouver Warriors Elite Academy tryouts and the Warriors announced the star-studded coaching line-up that includes Reid Bowering, Jackson Suboch, Adam Charalambides, Brayden Laity and Matt Beers. 

It’s not too late to register for tryouts which are open to U11 and U13 co-ed players. More information, including dates and what’s included in the program, are available here.

PROS TRAINING FUTURE PROS 👊

Introducing the Vancouver Warriors Elite Academy Coaches❗️
Registration for tryouts is OPEN, sign up today.

REGISTER NOW | https://t.co/QiOlPKQNeo pic.twitter.com/o1Gio1gkp8

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 19, 2024

In the Box 

NLL free agency was moved to September 2nd and by the time you read this is now open! Check out your Warriors Instagram and x feeds for all the latest!  

WLA 

After the regular season wrapped up, the WLA announced the awards for the season which saw Warriors Defensive Assistant Coach Rob Williams receive WLA Coach of the Year alongside Steve McKinley from the Coquitlam Adanacs. Williams coached the Maple Ridge Burrards to a second place WLA finish. 

CONGRATS, COACH‼️

Defensive Coach Rob Williams has earned @WLALacrosse Coach of the Year honours! 👏 pic.twitter.com/5Xw787suXc

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 6, 2024

Brad McCulley and newcomer Ronin Pusch punched their tickets to the Mann Cup with the Victoria Shamrocks who had an undefeated 18-0 regular season.  

The aforementioned Burrards and the Langley Thunder matched up in the first round of playoffs. Marcus Klarich earned the first star in the first game tallying five points (3G, 2A). Dylan Mcintosh contributed two goals, and an assist and Anthony Kalinich chipped in an assist in a 12-10 win. 

It was all Langley in the rest of the way in the best-of five series and the Thunder closed it out in four games and moved on to meet the Victoria Shamrocks in the WLA Finals. Mcintosh led the way for Maple Ridge in the second game and was the second star with a whopping seven points, three goals and four assists and Drew Andre had two assists. Mcintosh had another hat trick in game three and two assists in game four while Andre had one goal in game three. 

The Shamrocks matched up against the Salmonbellies in the first round and the Bellies pushed Victoria to six games. Adam Charalambides was the third star in the first game with three assists in an 11-5 loss. In the second game, Charalambides had five points (4G, 1A) and Kevin Crowley had four points (3G, 1A) in a 15-14 loss in overtime. 

Crowley was the first star of game three, exploding for five goals, lifting the Bellies to a 10-9 win in OT. Charalambides also poured in a goal and an assist.  

The Shamrocks took game four 8-4, Brad McCulley chipping in an assist in the win. 

Facing elimination, New West answered back in game five with a 9-8 win over Victoria. The Big Cat had four assists, Charalambides racking up a goal and an assist. 

The Shamrocks took game six 11-8 for the series and Charalambides had 3 points in the loss. 

Victoria swept the Thunder in the WLA finals 4-0 and will play in the Mann Cup the second week of September. 

BCJALL 

Brayden Laity and the Port Coquitlam Saints punched their ticket to the Minto Cup in July by advancing to the best-of-five BCJALL final against the Coquitlam Adanacs. Though the Adanacs ultimately took the series 3-0 they gained a ton of experience and set us up for an exciting tournament in Coquitlam.   

OJLL 

Across the country in the OJLL finals, Connor O’Toole and the Orangeville Northmen went all the way to game seven against the Mimico Mountaineers, besting the Mountaineers 20-12 and earning a berth to the Minto Cup. In game seven, O’Toole stopped 35 of 47 shots he faced. 

Minto Cup 

Congratulations to the Minto Cup Champion Coquitlam Adanacs! It was a momentous week of lacrosse showing many great individuals’ performances, including those from two of our very own! Laity and O’Toole matched up in the first-round robin game at Poirier Sport & Leisure Complex in Coquitlam to kick off an incredible week of lacrosse. The Port Coquitlam Saints took the first game 12-7, but both teams met in a tiebreaker game to determine which team would move on to the finals and the Orangeville Northmen got their revenge, topping the Saints 13-9 and O’Toole turned aside 40 of 49 shots he faced. 

Laity 🤝 Tooley@TheMintoCup started off strong yesterday in Coquitlam! pic.twitter.com/vrENj7FDBc

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 18, 2024

Hard-fought battle between teammates. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/DXR2LiVM7L

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 22, 2024

Through the round robin portion of the tournament, the Saints beat the Raiders 12-5 but fell to their cross-town rivals Coquitlam Adanacs 17-7 and finished with a 2-1 record in group play. The Northmen also finished with the same record (hence the tiebreaker game) beating the Raiders 13-6 and the Adanacs 12-9 in group play. 

Brayden Laity cleaned house and left a lasting impression in his last year of Junior ball. For the third year in a row, Laity took home BCJALL Defensive Player of the Year, a First Team All-Star selection, and the John Urban Award for the top graduating player. 

Laity also was the Saints MVP for game five in Poco’s 12-5 routing of the Raiders. 

Add @TheMintoCup game MVP to the resume for Brayden Laity 👊 pic.twitter.com/EYgBO8sEXR

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 20, 2024

Connor O’Toole won MVP of game three of the tournament against the Raiders, turning aside 33 of 39 shots. 

Connor O’Toole (@JrANorthmen) and Dylan Belliveau (@raidersjralax) were named the MVP’s of Game 3 at @TheMintoCup — each MVP receives a traditional wooden stick, designed and strung by Pete Natral and made by Delby Powless Sr. #MintoCup2024 pic.twitter.com/euYkma9UnI

— The Minto Cup (@TheMintoCup) August 19, 2024

Junior Warriors 

Junior Warriors went to the US Box Lacrosse Association in California and bringing home four gold medals, one silver and one bronze medal in various age groups. 

Williams was also the Coach of Team B.C.’s U17 box lacrosse team that won the National Championship in Saskatoon. 

U17 CHAMPS 🥇

Big congrats to Assistant Coach Rob Williams and Team BC for winning the U17 National Championship in Saskatoon this past weekend! pic.twitter.com/13REDnQett

— Vancouver Warriors (@VanWarriors) August 21, 2024

On the Field 

In his second PLL game, Cormier put up six points (5-1-6) for the New York Atlas, earning the Champion Player of the Week.  

WHAT A PERFORMANCE FROM PAYTON CORMIER! 😳

The undrafted rookie put up 6 points(!!!) for the @PLLAtlas in his second-ever PLL game. Wow.

👏 He's your @ChampionUSA Player of the Week! pic.twitter.com/0dT88WKzkx

— Premier Lacrosse League (@PremierLacrosse) August 20, 2024

New York Atlas held first place in the PLL the entire season, finishing the season as the Eastern Conference champions, and will see playoff action on Labour Day weekend. 

Teat & Cormier connection is like clockwork today ⏰

They make it a tie game for the Atlas🤘 pic.twitter.com/OxDuxae8rO

— Premier Lacrosse League (@PremierLacrosse) August 18, 2024

Alec Stathakis continued to be the go-to faceoff guy for the Philadelphia Waterdogs.