Sports

Less than two weeks before the start of the regular season the Okanagan Sun find themselves working with a new number one quarterback.

Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet

Cam Bedore will open the season as starting quarterback with the Okanagan Sun

In a surprise move Wednesday, the sun announced they had released second year starting quarterback Jeremy Joseph Mraovic.

That leaves the offence in the hands of rookie pivot Cam Bedore.

While not getting into specifics, first year Sun head coach Gavin Lake says the move, while difficult, was made with the best interests of both Joseph-Mraovic and the team.

"Jeremy is a great kid and his family situation is such that he needs to take care of first things first. Us as an organization as a family, we have to take of this for us first things first," says Lake.

"He's got some things he has to deal with and it's important he does that and we wanted to help him the best way possible and not put further stress on it. This was the best situation for both."

Joseph-Mraovic threw for 2,057 yards and 18 touchdowns last season after taking over the starting job from Bobby Davis.

While from the outside looking in it would appear the Sun will open the season facing some adversity on offence, Lake doesn't see it that way.

"Actually we're not facing adversity anymore. We've got a great quarterback situation and we've going to go forward with it," says Lake.

"Cam showed great improvement each day and I'm real excited about him. We have a great fifth year leader in Bobby Davis to back that up and I'm confident we're going to be just great."

Lake says he's not nervous at all entering the season with Bedore leading the offence.

"This kid went to (WJ) Mowat with Dennis Kelly, one of the best quarterback coaches in Canada. He's improved every single practice," added Lake.

"This is a 12 man on the field at a time thing and if he does what he's supposed to do in the frame of the playbook and ball distribution he's going to be awesome."

He says the Sun have enough weapons on offence that Bedore just needs to get the ball in their hands. He doesn't have to win every game by himself.

Meantime, the Sun play their first and only pre-season game Saturday when they tackle the Kamloops Broncos in Salmon Arm.

Lake says most of the starters are set so Saturday's game will give him a chance to evaluate the second and third stringers to see who will be impact players for the regular season roster.

He expects the first stringers to see action into the second quarter before starting to unload the bench.

Following Saturday's game the Sun will practice next week leading up to the regular season opener August 4 when they host the Langley Rams.