As promised yesterday, Wednesdays will now feature the Division II version of Canadians in the NCAA. Unfortunately, the data collection process for Division II has taken longer than anticipated, so this week will again feature only the men in the second Division. I hope to have the women’s database built by next week.
Canadians continue to dominate at the Division II level. The below charts show the extent to which several of the nation’s most prolific goal scorers hail from the Great White North. The first chart shows all players in DII, while the second one shows just the top 100 goal scorers, compared by goals and shooting percentage.
If you are looking for effective, efficient goal scorers… then Canada is still the place to find them.
Two Canadians this week broke school records for individual goals in a game.
The top scorer in the division this week was Colby Bowman (Nanaimo, BC) at Walsh University, who scored a whopping 12 goals and 14 points in his two games last week. Bowman had an incredible 8 goals in their victory over D’Youville. That puts him up to 27 goals on the season, but with 12 in his last two contests, look for him to break out the rest of the season.
It was the most goals ever scored by a Walsh player.
Post University’s Robbie McGrayne (Oshawa, Ontario) also had 12 goals in his two games. McGrayne had ten(!!!!) goals against Holy Family on the weekend. This season he’s up to 42 goals on an insane 59% shooting. What a year he is having.
Unsurprisingly, the effort set a new program record at Post, and McGrayne was named the CACC Player of the week. Below is a post-game interview from McGrayne.
McGrayne was joined in the conference awards by teammate James Sproul (Aurora, Ontario) who had an insane 17 loose balls and 5 caused turnovers in two contests last week. Sproul only took four faceoffs in the two contests, so his loose balls came the old fashioned way. Keep going James!
In the mere mortal category, Montevello’s Hunter Trevayne (Aldergrove, BC) had 4 goals and 2 assists in a big victory over Shorter. Trevayne’s 29 assists ranks right at the top of Division II, not just the Canadian cohort.
Another player at the top of the national assists chart is Newberry’s Zach Thompson (Ottawa, Ontario). Thompson is the brother of NLL player Ty Thompson (who happens to be my roommate for the Panther City Lacrosse Club) and had a nice 2 goal, 3 assist effort on the weekend. Thomson is one of a litany of Canadians lighting it up at Newberry.
Mount Olive’s Aidan Lalonde was the most clutch Canadian this week. Against Belmont Abbey, he assisted on a goal with 4:31 remaining to bring his squad within one. Then he scored with 3:25 remaining to send the game to overtime. Then in the extra session, he put the victory to bed for the Trojans when he scored the overtime winner. As I wrote yesterday, not all goals are created equal. Credit to Lalonde for getting it done when it mattered.
Unsurprisingly, the victory earned him the conference player of the week award.
Over at Chowan, Erik Dozzi (Coquitlam, BC) his a milestone of his own, scoring his 200th point of his career. He did it in style as well, with a 4 goal, 5 assist effort against Emmanuel. Dozzi joins Canadian Eric George (Stony Plain, Alberta) in the 200 point club.
Defender Ries Bower (Lethbridge, Alberta) had an impressive week for American International as well. Against Franklin Pierce, he had 6 caused turnovers and 6 loose balls to lead the Bees to victory. He followed that up against St. Anselm, with an assist, 3 more loose balls, and 3 additional caused turnovers.
Bower has had 7 caused turnovers in a game twice, 6 in a game twice, and has not had a game with fewer than two. He’s a superstar in Springfield.
Congrats to all these players on their incredible contributions, and thanks for reading. See you next week!