A golden summer in indoor lacrosse
Niagara teen follows up Ontario title with gold medal at nationals
Fourteen-year-old Gavin Howard spent one of the hottest summers on record inside even hotter arenas playing lacrosse.
To say the son of Jason and Sarah Howard of St. Catharines has enjoyed his summer so far would be an understatement.
What fun in the sun Howard missed was more than offset by time spent basking in the spotlight winning a national championship and one at the provincial level.
After being part of a St. Catharines Athletics bantam team that took the Ontario title, he won it all again three weeks later, this time at the Canadian championships in Saskatoon.
Howard, who is entering Grade 9 at Saint Francis Catholic Secondary School, was encouraged to try out for Team Ontario by Mike Accursi, one of his coaches with the Athletics.
Howard attended tryout sessions in Orangeville, Whitby and Peterborough before making the 20-man roster.
“We needed to play our best right from the get go, and we couldn’t step off the gas.”
GAVIN HOWARD
Ontario bantam team captain
“They were long, they were tough because everyone was at the same level,” he recalled. “It was really fast-paced, all of them were good.”
Howard, who began playing lacrosse at age four, came into the tryouts with some experience competing nationally. Two years ago he won a gold medal for Ontario at the peewee level.
At Saskatoon, Team Ontario defended its Canadian championship by going 7-0 and coming from behind to defeat British Columbia in the final.
Ontario, coached by current San Diego Seals assistant coach and former Toronto Rock assistant general manager Josh Sanderson, went west as the team favoured to win it all.
“Coming in we thought we had a great chance of winning it because we had a good squad,” Howard said. “It wasn’t really a surprise.
“We had the target on our back, everybody wanted to beat us.”
In his role as captain Howard reminded teammates at nationals they needed to follow Ontario’s game plan and not have the flow of the action dictated by an opponent.
“We needed to play our best right from the get go, and we couldn’t step off the gas.
“We just have to keep going, use our transition to beat teams.”
Ontario beat B.C. 4-1 earlier in the six-team tournament but Howard’s team couldn’t take much from that game.
“It was their second game of the day, so it wasn’t their best game.”
No, that would be in the final. With the gold medal on the line, Ontario trailed B.C. 5-4 before scoring three unanswered goals, including an empty-netter, to clinch the victory.
Howard, who scored the gametying goal for Ontario in the final, was chosen captain after competing against the Orangeville team that Sanderson coached at provincials.
“St. Catharines winning the tournament was definitely part of the decision with Howey being the captain,” Sanderson said. “The fact is he was hardest-working guy at our tryouts for Team O, and I know Gavin and I know he’s a team player.”
Sanderson, who played 19 years in the National Lacrosse League before retiring two years ago, described the soft-spoken Howard as a captain who leads by example.
“He’s not a big rah-rah guy, he just plays a real hard game at both ends,” Sanderson said. “He’s a guy I know I was going to be able to count on.”
Howard plays field lacrosse for the St. Catharines, and he appreciates the outdoor version will take him much further in the game, like earning an athletic scholarship to a Division 1 university in the U.S.
He also prefers field to box lacrosse.
“There’s more space, more time to work with your teammates.”
Sanderson is confident Howard will be able to parlay his skills into a scholarship.
“That’s not going to be an issue, that will happen for him,” the Team Ontario coach said. “If he’s as good at school as lacrosse, it’s a no-brainer.
“He’s the complete package, so to speak.”
Sanderson said the stick skills and experience of playing in tight areas will benefit Howard in the outdoor version of Canada’s national summer game.
“The box helps the field, so any coach that’s looking at him will see that he’s going to be able to contribute to any field lacrosse program/box lacrosse program that he plays for.”