It’s been a season with a few firsts for the Guelph Regals.
Team wise, they won an Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League Tier 1 playoff series for the first time when they swept the Windsor Clippers out of the best-of-five Western Conference quarter-finals. The franchise that started playing in 1992 had never advanced out of the first round of the top tier of the playoffs before then.
The Regals currently trail the Six Nations Rebels 2-1 in their best-of-five Western Conference semifinal with Game 4 set for the Victoria Road Arena Sunday at 3 p.m.
Individually, the team also had two players surpass the 100-point total in a single season. It was the first time the Regals had two players reach triple digits in a single season and their inclusion on the list of the team’s 100-point scorers doubled it.
Marcus Keleher led the league with a franchise-record 116 points (53 goals and 63 assists) while Owen Orpana was third at 101 (52 goals and 49 assists).
“Yeah, it was a pretty good achievement,” Keleher said.”The most in team history, so it was fun. It was a fun year playing with all the guys, and especially everyone staying back.”
For the 21-year-old Keleher, it’s his third and final season with the Regals. He finishes with 102 goals and 240 points in three regular seasons. It could’ve been a lot more if not for COVID erasing the 2020 and 2021 seasons. However, he could also have moved up to play for the Oakville Buzz of the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League, a junior A loop. The Regals are the junior B affiliate of the Buzz.
Orpana is likely to be playing for the Buzz next year as he’s 18 and just finished his second season with the Regals. He has 76 goals and 150 points in two regular seasons with his hometown team.
“I'm fairly young to be doing 100 points this year,” Orpana said. “It was pretty exciting. I mean, hitting 100 points was pretty cool, especially me being the fourth guy that involved to ever do it and that's something that I wanted to accomplish this year. I reached that goal, so it was pretty sweet season for me.”
And to get two 100-point scorers in a season was extra special.
“Honestly, just playing together as a team and working together, passing each other a ball and making sure it should happen,” Keleher said as the key to the offensive output for the team’s players.
“It's phenomenal,” Orpana said. “I find it was like we were kind of pushing each other. I find if he gets seven points one game, I want to beat him the next game. Without Marcus, I don't think I could have hit that many points, but I thought we pushed each other. We were on (the floor) a lot and we shared the ball a lot.”
Both have been playing lacrosse since they were wee ones and both also play the field game, but find the indoor game to be a little more to their liking.
“I’ve played ever since I could remember,” Keleher said. “My dad gave me a lacrosse stick, so me and my brother would always go out and all of our buddies would come over. We’d play in the backyard or play in the front yard and we'd just battle it out. I think that's what made us so good.”
Marcus’s twin brother Ethan is also a member of the Regals and he finished fourth in team scoring of the players who were with the team the entire season. He had 37 points (19 goals and 18 assists). While Marcus had plenty of chances to get points as he’s a forward, Ethan’s chances were limited as a transition player.
“There's a little bit of competition there,” Marcus said. “We play different positions and being mostly D, it's fun to see him put some in the back of the net.”
Marcus could have played with the Buzz this season, but decided to stay and play his final junior season for his hometown.
“I wanted to go play junior A in the second year, but with COVID ...,” Marcus said. “It seemed once I started working, just driving literally two minutes around the corner for practice and games is awesome and playing with your buddies is the best part about it.”
But it wasn’t work that kept Marcus playing with the Regals this year.
“It was once my dad (Steve) committed to start coaching this year,” Marcus said. “It was then it was like, ‘We're going for a Founder’s (the national junior B championship trophy). Everyone was committed and everyone stayed.”
“All the guys on the team and everything, it helps us out,” Orpana said. “Everyone is pushing each other to get better. Getting home-floor advantage (for the conference quarter-finals) was our first goal and then the second goal was winning our first series. So we did that.”
While the team had never won a Tier 1 playoff series until this year, it didn’t really
“I don't think it really was weighing on us much. Last year, we were hoping to get through, but then this year there was a lot more confidence in the room. Everyone wanted a lot more than we did last year. Yeah, a lot of guys back from last year.”
The Regals have six players on their roster in their final year of junior lacrosse eligibility – the Kelehers, goaltender Ty Fox-Trudel, transition player Sam MacDonald and defenders Julian Siragusa and Cam Wheeldon. They also had seven players with one more season of junior lacrosse eligibility.
The Guelph squad’s 14-6-0 regular-season record this year tied the best ever record as the Regals also went 14-6-0 in 2005. They also had 14 wins in 1995 when the regular season was 22 games (they lost their other eight games).
When the Regals step on the floor for their 2024 season, they’ll be looking for another franchise first – the first time the team has put together three consecutive seasons with records above the .500 winning percentage.
