Wilson has Edge on the competition
Mike Wilson didn’t have any grand scheme in mind when he started playing field lacrosse in Mississauga with the Edge travel program in Grade 7.
“When I first started playing for Edge, it was just kind of for fun and to test myself, but then it got more serious when I started to get recruited,” the 18-year-old said. “I had a few schools reach out to me with emails and that’s when I kind of knew I might be able to take it even more seriously.”
The Grade 12 student at Holy Cross Secondary School is going to get to play field lacrosse as serious at it gets after signing to play NCAA Division 1 field lacrosse with the Canisius Golden Griffins in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
The six-foot, 180-pounder had two Division 1 offers and plenty of interest from Division 3 schools before choosing Canisius.
The former Niagara North Stars travel hockey player, who quit hockey in Grade 10 to focus his efforts year round on lacrosse, had plenty of reasons to choose Canisius.
“It’s close to home, first of all, and they are a good school,” he said. “They won the MAC division last year and they were also recruiting me for now rather than two years from now.
“A lot of kids on my Edge team get recruited for 2020, but I didn’t want to take a gap year. It just made sense to go now.”
Wilson has played field lacrosse and hockey at Holy Cross for the past four seasons and lacrosse coach Dave Walker has seen the talented teen improve each and every year.
“He has always been a big kid, but in the last year or so he has started to develop some power and speed to go with being a big kid,” Walker said. “He understands the game well, he is a really good shutdown guy and an excellent transition guy. He can really carry the ball when he gets it.”
Walker expects Wilson to have a good career at Canisius.
“Not immediately because, in my opinion, he’s still growing into his body and he needs to get into the weight room next year. Once, he gets into the weight room, he will translate well into the collegiate game.”
Wilson would like to play sooner rather than later.
“The coach told me I could make an impact when I come there, but I don’t think I would play in any huge games,” he said. “But they do have a lot of (long) poles graduating.”
His goals are to get playing time any way he can.
“The goal is to be a starter, maybe not this year, but next year.”
Wherever his career takes him, he will enjoy the ride.
“I like the technical side of it. Playing defence, there’s a lot of angles,” he said. “And I love covering guys behind the net and the one-on-one aspect of it.”
Wilson and his Holy Cross teammates were supposed to play St. Francis Tuesday morning to determine the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association for the Zone 4 A/AA championship game, but St. Francis forfeited the game. Holy Cross will play either Sir Winston Churchill or Governor Simcoe in the Niagara championship game Thursday at 10 a.m. at Sir Winston Churchill.
