The Windsor Clippers are back!

By Devan Mighton

Unlike a number of other sports that at both minor and professional level were able to run truncated seasons over the past two years, box lacrosse mostly fell to the wayside.

The COVID-19 pandemic kept the Windsor-Essex region’s premier lacrosse clubs – the Windsor Clippers Jr. B team and the Windsor Warlocks minor lacrosse association – from operating anything more than the odd clinic and a severely short exhibition series last August.

Despite all this, Canada’s national summer sport is returning to Windsor’s Forest Glade Arena on a full-time basis this spring and summer.

“It’s great to be back out with the Clippers after two off-seasons,” states veteran Clippers goalie Chase Cosgrove. “It’s going to be a good season this year with the young talent we have coming up as well as all the older guys coming back to play again. We have a lot of guys with Junior A potential who opted to play in Windsor this season instead which is great for us. We have a lot of older guys who were able to get in a lot of junior games before COVID which gives us a very experienced leadership group compared to other teams.”

Cosgrove, who participated in an Oakville-based two-week Junior A season last summer with the Kitchener-Waterloo Braves, says he stayed prepared for lacrosse through home workouts and later by hitting the gym. He says he also was able to gather with some of his teammates at tennis courts or open fields to get some goalie reps in.

“Going into my last season, I personally just want to win as many games as possible and make it as far as we can in the playoffs,” says the third year civil engineering student at the University of Windsor. “I also want to help develop the younger players and goalies for their future seasons.”

Clippers’ rookie Nate DeThomasis says he prepared for the upcoming season by keeping a stick in his hands, whether in his backyard, in Windsor, or in Toronto.

“I’m very excited for my first actual year,” states the General Amherst High School Gr. 12 student. “It has been a while since the guys and I have been back and I think we are going to have a really great team and year.”

DeThomasis, who has aspirations of getting a lacrosse scholarship to an American college, says his goal for this season is to help his team as much as he can and to win a championship.

On Sat. Apr. 16, the Clippers held a three-game preseason tournament with the Point Edward Pacers and Six Nations Rebels. The Clippers went two-for-two on the day with a pair of clutch 5-4 wins.

“The Point Edward game took a little while for the offence to get going,” says Clippers’ head coach Jerry Kavanaugh. Our defense and goalies M.J. Schwager and Griffin Salaris were solid.

“In the Six Nations game, we started short with only 13 runners after a couple injuries in the morning game. We got shorter with an ejection and another injury. Salaris and Cosgrove were outstanding in this one. A very gutsy effort to pull out the win with only 11 guys for the last period and half of them were midget (under-17) age.”

Kavanaugh reports that Cosgrove will be joined by a number of veterans on this year’s squad, including Kaden Brennan, Zane Dalpe, Bailey Rolph, Kolton Couvillon, Connor McManus, Josh Rosa and Jacob McLellan – all of whom played with the 2019 squad before the pandemic.

He also says the team has a large number of new faces, including Xander Derkatz, Malikye Good, Calum Brennan, Brandon Coulter, Max Frattaroli, Vance Dalpe, and Kaleb Sanderson on offence, Jack Bulmer, Kale Couvillon, Nate DeThomasis, Jacob Higgins, Kane Murphy, Dawson Kavanaugh, and Connor Scott on defence, and Salaris and Schwager rounding out a deep goalie pool.

“I think the guys are just excited to get back at it,” states Kavanaugh. “Our expectations are the same as always, but not really knowing what other teams will look like after the two years off makes it a little tougher to know where we think we’ll be.”

Check out windsorclippers.com to learn more.