Green Gaels not getting any older

BOWMANVILLE -- It may not take the Clarington Green Gaels long to make the perfect regular season of a year ago a distant memory.

In fact, if assistant coach Jonas Derks has his way, the streak would end tomorrow night.

That's when the Green Gaels open the Jr. B lacrosse season against Mississauga, with opening faceoff at 8 p.m. at the Recreation Complex.

It's not so much that Derks is wishing the worst on his team, but rather, he would like to see this season end in reverse of the one a year ago. Last season, the club went 20-0-0 in the regular season, but lost the last three games of the year, swept by Six Nations in three straight in the league championship.

"We're not going to come out of the gate the same way as we did last year," reasons Derks. "But I would rather flip flop this season and last season. I would rather lose the first three games of the year and win all the rest, than win 29 in a row and lose the last three in the finals like we did last year."

Duplicating anything even close to last season may prove to be a big challenge this time around. A number of players off last year's roster are expected to stick with the Whitby Warriors this season, leaving just a handful of veteran players available. In fact, just one runner from last year's roster, Eric Sorichetti, was at practice Monday. Another, Christoffe Perron, is expected back in town Thursday. In net, Zach Higgins is returning from last season.

"I can't even give you a solid answer on that," chuckles Derks when asked how many veterans the team will sign.

A few of the rookies out of the Whitby minor system that have impressed in the early going have been Kyle Lindsay, Mitchell Wilde and Zach Palmer. Another new player to the team, but not a rookie, will be goalie Matt Chamois, who played last season in Mississauga.

"We have a lot of kids coming up from midget, and these kids are pretty solid players," says Derks of the young roster that will be on the floor. "A lot of teams will look at us and say we are going to be terrible because we have a lot of 16-year-olds, and that's fine with us. We knew we were going to lose most of our kids. We knew the situation we would be in, but we have some quality players."

After Thursday's opener the Green Gaels will head east for weekend games in Cornwall Saturday and Akwesasne Sunday.

---