The Delta Islanders have put themselves in an excellent position to repeat as West Coast Junior Lacrosse League champions. It's just taken an unconventional route to get there.
The Islanders will open defence of their title on Monday night at the Ladner Leisure Centre (8: 30 p.m.) in a best-of-three series against the North Shore Eagles after put-ting together a solid 16-3-1 regular season. The impressive record was done with a patched-up roster much of the way as the club has been hit hard by the injury bug.
"We've done well despite it taking a real community-like effort to get there," said Islanders head coach Dave Haller. "We have had to rely a lot on intermediate A and B call-ups just to put a team on the floor, even goaltending help from Prince George. We are finally getting healthy at the right time of the year but we still expect to be down four or five bodies."
Last season, the Islanders prevailed in a thrilling final series against Coquitlam and went on to lose the provincial final to Kamloops. They could very well meet up with the Adanacs again but Haller warned neither team can afford to look past their earlier opponents, especially in best-of-three series.
"Our only loss this season came against North Shore and the other game was a very close win for us," said Haller. "New West and Burnaby are excellent teams as well."
Dallas Chreyptk and Jordan Thauli have been setting the pace for a balanced Islanders attack with 49 points. The team received a significant boost when Sam Clare returned from his sophomore season with the SFU field lacrosse program and opted to play Junior B. He has 38 points in just six games, including 23 goals.
