Altona Lacrosse Club overseas player, Mitch Whalen, has gone from teaching our young defenders to being captain of Virginia University.

As soon as Mitch and Ricky arrived at Altona, you could tell they were leaders. Whilst Ricky kept the score ticking along, Mitch was starring in defense and through the midfield. The better the opposition, the better Mitch played. It is no surprise Mitch’s best game was against the premiers, Footscray where Altona went down in golden goal 13 – 14. The week before Footscray had defeated Camberwell by 20 goals.

Mitch scored 4 of Altona’s 13 goals and Ricky 5. Altona had 3 chances to win the game in golden goal before Footscray showed what a great side they are by scoring on their first trip into attack through a Peter Kwas worm burner. Mitch was everywhere that day in stopping Footscray’s star forward line to scoring clutch goals. It is absolutely no surprise to see such a competitor now captain of the mighty University of Virginia lacrosse side.

And what was Ricky’s best game you might ask? His 6 goals from 7 shots against Australian goal keeper Sean Aaron.  It is a real shame that by splitting the competition these two stars of the game missed out playing against a side like Williamstown which would have been a great game for Williamstown’s players as well as Altona’s. I am sure Williamstown’s great attackers would have loved the opportunity to go head-to-head against one of the best long stick midfielders in the world. The Williamstown defense would also have loved to play against a lethal shooter like Ricky. Hopefully we will not miss these opportunities in future years.

You can read Mitch’s interview when he was made captain of Virginia here.

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