PAST: Richmond Roadrunners / Burnaby Lakers
PRESENT: Vancouver Technical turf field
FUTURE: NCAA Div. 1 High Point University Panthers
He may have an innate ability to find the open man or the back of the net, but Tyler Vogrig doesn’t only play on instinct. He can think before he acts.
“I try to use my brain more than my size,” said Vogrig, 18, who set a scoring record for B.C. Intermediate Lacrosse in his final year with the “A” Richmond Roadrunners. He scored 69 goals and added 50 assists for 119 points in 18 games with the box lacrosse team.
Never the biggest competitor in the game, the five-foot-nine lacrosse forward has learned where to target the weakest defenders and when to strike.
“He scores in just about every fashion possible,” said the Roadrunners coach Greg Rennie, who has reviewed hours of game footage with Vogrig. “He’s small, so you don’t expect him to be as gritty as he is or go inside as often. Tyler really feeds off success.”
Vogrig (pronounced like “go” or “score”) followed his older brother Ryan into lacrosse and neither has since put down his stick. Together they play at parks near their home and every few days after school, Vogrig visits the turf field at Van Tech to shoot on an empty net.
He plays on the right and knows his brother will be on the other side of the crease. “I always tell him to put his stick up and I’ll put the ball right there, wherever he wants it,” said the younger forward. “I just know where he’s going to be.”
At 16, Vogrig was selected first overall by the Junior “A” Burnaby Lakers in the midget entry draft for a league generally reserved for players aged 18 to 21.
The Lakers made moves to sign Vogrig’s older brother before the draft, said Burnaby general manager Brad Hera. “It’s like trading to get the Sedins together,” he said. In eight games so far, Vogrig has 12 goals and 18 assists.
In August, Vogrig will move to North Carolina to play field lacrosse in the NCAA Division 1 with the High Point University Panthers in the Atlantic Sun Conference. “He plays the game at another speed,” said Panthers coach Jon Torpey. “If you look at his stats, they speak for themselves.”
On top of his record number of points, Vogrig has a hard, accurate shot, hands as fast as his feet and the confidence to fend off aggressors in a violent sport.
Rennie, the Roadrunners coach, said, “Everyone says he’s too small to take it to the next level but he keeps going to the next level.”
