Victoria Highlanders FC News Release -- www.victoriahighlandersfc.com
Thursday, March 6, 2014
VICTORIA, B.C. -- With the PDL season less than two months away, the Victoria Highlanders FC are excited to make the first player announcement for the club’s 2014 roster, pending USL approval. The Highlanders will be re-signing seven players from the 2013 squad that captured the PDL Western Conference Championship, all of whom spent the fall season with the University of Victoria Vikes. The 2014 Highlanders team will see the return of Elliot Mitrou in goal, along with Adam Ravenhill and Gavin Barrett in front of him in defense. Midfielders Craig Gorman, Sam Prette, Andrew Ravenhill and Cameron Stokes will also be returning.
The group comes back to the Highlanders from one of the top Men’s Soccer programs in Canada. They share several Canada West First and Second Team All Stars honours among them, while Barrett and Ravenhill have both been named CIS Second Team All-Canadians, and Mitrou was a First Team All-Canadian this past season. Cameron Stokes was tied for the Vikes top goal scorer this past season, with 11 goals in 14 matches.
This group also has the advantage of knowing one another and this organization. “One of the goals coming into this season is to maintain consistency and familiarity from last year,” said men’s Head Coach Steve Simonson. “The Vikes players obviously have a great familiarity with each other, and I expect that will carry over into our team.”
“I think the players understand that they may have different roles with us than perhaps they have had in the winter, and they realize that they have to join into new squad and new set of teammates for the PDL season,” said Coach Simonson regarding the adjustment these players will need to make coming back to the Highlanders.
This exchange of players between the Highlanders and the University also allows them to bring back more of the group that took part in the 2013 season in which they finished first in the USL PDL Northwest Division and were Western Conference Champions. “The core of our squad will be back again this year so I expect we will have a solid team,” said Coach Simonson. “We have added some quality and some depth this year and we will work very hard to replicate the sort of success that we showed last year in what we expect to be a very tough division.