It’s a classic sports storyline told many times: The older brother throws his kid brother in the net so he can have somebody to shoot on. In this case, it will lead to incoming freshman goaltender Grayson Manning joining his older brother and senior forward Noah Manning playing field lacrosse together in NCAA Div. 1 next season with the University of Denver Pioneers.
“It’s really cool and exciting, an unbelievable opportunity, to play with my brother in NCAA, because Noah was the guy who would put me in net so he would have someone to chuck balls at when we were kids,” said Grayson.
“We were both super competitive. I looked up to him. But I never got to play with him in organized lacrosse, because every year I moved up into a division, Noah had also moved up a division. The one year we had the chance, when I was in Grade 9 and Noah Grade 12 [at Royal Bay Secondary], COVID hit and the season was wiped out.”
But the COVID year still proved intensely productive in another way. Because all organized activities were halted and outside contact limited, the brothers spent day after day, hour after hour, with Noah shooting on Grayson in the backyard of the family home or on the nearby Royal Bay school field.
“That’s the first time we got to play together in a sense,” said Grayson.
“Because there was nobody else to play with. And yet I feel like it clicked in terms of my development.”
Grayson has also followed Noah in box lacrosse. Noah was a standout forward on the Victoria Junior Shamrocks and played in the Minto Cup national junior championship. Grayson is currently the goaltender for the Junior Shamrocks.
“I am passionate about both box and field lacrosse,” said Grayson, who will pursue both codes of the game.
“With it now an Olympic sport [field-lacrosse sixes will be introduced at Los Angeles 2028], I feel that adds a new dimension that will allow our sport to really grow world-wide.”
Noah Manning has already tasted the international game by winning world championship silver with sa国际传媒 at the 2022 Under-21 world field lacrosse championship in Limerick, Ireland.
For goaltenders, however, both codes of the sport provide their own unique logistical challenges. The most obvious is the sparse protective equipment allowed goalies in field lacrosse compared to the full-on pad protection allowed, and needed, in box lacrosse.
“It hurt a ton when I first started playing goal in field,” said Grayson
“But it doesn’t as much anymore when you learn how to properly tend net in field.”
The biggest difference, said Grayson: “Is having to be concerned more with the upper part of the net in field, and using the stick more, because the nets are higher.”
Asked if he is more a positional or reaction goaltender, Grayson said a bit of both, but that “you play the angles a bit more in box.”
Grayson Manning will be backstopping the Royal Bay Ravens this week in Claremont Secondary’s Spartan Shootout, which runs Friday and Saturday at UVic, and features Royal Bay, Claremont and high school teams from Vancouver, Mission, Coquitlam, North Delta, Calgary and Mercer Island, Washington.
The Shootout annually attracts NCAA coaches and scouts from across the U.S.
