Preds’ Rieger eager to contribute at University of Mount Olive

Photo courtesy of the Prince Albert Predators Facebook Page Brayden Rieger has signed with the University of Mount Olive Trojans

Brayden Rieger is the newest lacrosse player on campus at the University of Mount Olive.

The Prince Albert Predators star committed to go south of the border for the spring semester earlier this month.

Rieger says he has enjoyed his time on campus so far.

“It’s been new and hard to adjust for sure. I’ve been liking it, practices are high intensity and classes have been good. The weather is also great, everything’s just been pretty good so far.”

The University of Mount Olive is an NCAA Division II school located in Mount Olive, North Carolina. The Trojans compete in the Conference Carolinas which consists of Barton, Belmont Abbey, Chowan, Emmanuel, Lees-McRae, North Greenville, Shorter and Young Harris.

In NCAA lacrosse, teams play the field lacrosse rather than box lacrosse which is the format that the PGLL plays.. As the name suggests, field lacrosse is played outdoors on a field while box lacrosse is played indoors in an arena setting.

Rieger says his box lacrosse background has helped him early on with the Trojans.

“It’s interesting because we actually do have a few offensive Canadians on this team. Our coach, he does like to run some offense like in a Canadian style way. It’s nice to have that box background and be able to know what’s going on.”

Rieger was a key contributor in the Predators undefeated season in the Prairie Gold Lacrosse League (PGLL) and MacDonald Cup championship.

In 14 PGLL games, Rieger led the league in scoring with 98 points (49G, 49A) averaging seven points per game.

Rieger says he will remember last season with the Predators for many years to come.

“It is extremely special, we made history. We won our first Founders Cup play-in. The second round didn’t go as well as we wanted it to, but then just to be able to go into the MacDonald Cup and not really have a problem. It speaks a lot for Prince Albert and where we’ve come as a program and how we’d like to continue that into the future.”

Rieger won’t be the only Predators suiting up for Mount Olive this season. Davin Ikert was the captain for Prince Albert last season and is entering his senior season with the Trojans.

Rieger says Ikert is a major reason he ended up in Mount Olive and has helped him tremendously early in the semester.

“During the season, he was talking to me a bit about it. I (thought) that’d be pretty cool. The coach reached out to me and I took the offer and here I am. He’s introduced me to pretty much everyone and he’s helped me. If I had any questions to ask him. If I need to go anywhere, he’ll drive me. It helps a lot having someone that I know well being here.”

The Trojans kick off their exhibition season on Saturday, Feb. 8 when they travel to take on Catawba College. Ball drop is scheduled for noon.

sports@paherald.sk.ca

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