Even without the benefit of the first overall pick in the Western Lacrosse Association draft, the Coquitlam Adanacs stocked its larder with homegrown talent general manager Chase Dunlop hopes will be the team’s recipe to escape the league’s basement.
The Adanacs, which won just two games last season, didn’t get to call a name on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at the Langley Events Centre until the start of the second round, after the team dealt its first round pick to the Maple Ridge Burrards in the 2022 deal for Ben and Garrett McIntosh.
With protected players Luca Antongiovanni and Jack Charboneau of the Jr. Adanacs already brought into Coquitlam’s fold at the territorial draft last month, the team plucked Max Semple from its junior cousins with the first pick in the second round of Tuesday’s general draft of graduating junior players.
Semple had 102 points in 45 games through his four seasons with the Jr. Adanacs.
Antongiovanni, a transition player who got a taste of junior lacrosse as a 16-year-old when he joined the Jr. Adanacs for its 2018 championship drive, amassed 33 points in 38 games over four seasons in the BCJALL.
Charboneau scored 153 points in 37 games for the Jr. Adanacs.
“I’m just really excited to be wearing the purple and gold,” he said of joining the senior side, adding he’s ready to “buy into the vision” of the Adanacs’ new coach, Steve McKinlay.
In the third round, the Adanacs added Daylen Nair from the Port Coquitlam Saints and Conrad Squarek, a hulking 6’5” defender from the Delta Islanders.
Nair, also a defender, had seven points in 21 games for the Saints.
Rounding out its selections, the Adanacs got Marcelo Mannarino and goaltender Ryder Bremner in the fourth round as well as Aidan Lalonde with the first pick in the fifth round.
Mannarino and Lalonde played for the Jr. Adanacs while Bremner is a graduate of the Saints, where he won eight games, lost 10 and posted a 9.92 goals against average last season.
