Beers sets bar for Warriors, leads push for win column

Matt Beers is playing the best lacrosse of his career. Just don’t try to talk to him too much about it.

“Until we win another game, I won’t be thinking that I’m playing well enough,” the Vancouver Warriors team captain explained.

Beers, who is in his ninth season with Vancouver, is a rugged defender who has always played with equal parts edge and emotion. Heart on his sleeve, shoulder in your sternum.

It’s been easy to wonder if the team’s struggles would get to the 6-foot-3, 210 pounder from Coquitlam and gravely affect his play, but Vancouver carries a 1-5 record into a Saturday visit (7 p.m., Bleacher Report Live) to Rogers Arena from the Colorado Mammoth (1-3), and Beers, who’s in his second season with the “C", has been a furious force throughout.

If there has been an opponent on his keister, Beers has done it. If there’s been a loose ball in his vicinity, Beers has won it. He has been a nuisance to opposing snipers, including playing a key role in Vancouver keeping San Diego Seals rookie sensation Austin Staats to two goals in the Warriors’ 11-10 loss last week.

“He’s very much an emotional guy, and, quite frankly, I think it’s a big positive that the other players see that,” Warriors general manager Dan Richardson said of Beers, 29, a Burnaby firefighter by day. “They know exactly what this means to him.

“We knew that the first part of the year was going to be challenging, but hopefully we can turn a corner soon and start getting some Ws. When that happens, the guy that I’m probably going to be happiest for is Matt Beers.”

Beers added: “It’s frustrating not getting the results. At the same time, we’re improving. There are a lot of positives to talk about.”

Beers is someone who lacrosse people have been talking about for some time. He was a key player on the 2010 Coquitlam Adanacs team that won the Minto Cup junior national championship, the first overall pick in the 2011 Western Lacrosse Association draft by the Burnaby Lakers, a 2013 WLA first team all-star for his play with Burnaby that summer.

It feels like his game has taken another step forward this winter so far.

There are some numbers to back it. Beers is third in the NLL in loose balls (55). His career high is 95, set two seasons ago.

More than anything, though, it seems like Beers is forever around the action, that play-by-play man Brandon Astle is repeatedly saying his name.

There are those times where he’s obviously front and centre, like in the first week when he scored the game winner in a 14-13 overtime triumph over the Calgary Roughnecks, or last week when he had a scrap with San Diego captain Brodie Merrill.

Then there are those subtle things, like when an opponents gets flustered into a turnover and you check out who’s marking him — it’s Beers.

“He sets the bar for work ethic for our team and gives the rookies someone to look up to and see what it takes to be a pro at the highest level,” maintained Vancouver forward Logan Schuss. “Matt’s doing whatever it takes for us to win games.”

The team was 2-16 last year when they were playing out of the Langley Events Centre as the Vancouver Stealth. Richardson, who was brought on as general manager after the Vancouver Canucks bought the team and started rebranding it as the Warriors, blew up the roster. Beers is one of a mere nine players back who played in at least 10 games with the Stealth last season.

They gave up a league-worst 57 shots per game a year ago. They are tied for third in the loop right now, allowing 50.

They are also averaging a leaguelow 47 shots per game, so that’s something they will need to work on. Their offence took a hit, too, on Wednesday when Richardson said that right-hander Joel McCready likely had suffered a torn Achilles and was going to miss the remainder of the season. McCready, 30, was consulting with surgeons on Wednesday.

McCready had 29 goals two years ago and 30 in 2015. He gives Vancouver an inside presence. Richardson said that James Rahe, a forward by trade who had been playing defence for Vancouver of late, might be shifted back up front to take McCready’s spot alongside fellow righties Keegan Bal, Jordan McBride and Tony Malcom, or the Warriors might look for a free-agent pickup for that spot.