Tight First Game

Submitted by League Reporter, Jen Mutas

After nine days without a game for New Westminster and six for the Adanacs who needed all five games to finish their second round opponents, the BCJALL finals were finally underway Tuesday night in Coquitlam. The series features a team who tore up the regular season and a team who has dominated the post season, which will combine to make one hell of a match-up in the hunt for the Minto Cup.

After a successful final game versus Burnaby Chris Seidel would start in net for the A's hoping to carry over his post season success; with a teammate like Corbyn Tao scoring a beautiful behind the back/over the shoulder goal to open scoring, it's easy to get in a swing of momentum. Regular season points leader Robert Church would score two goals in the first period to give the A's a bit of room with their lead, heading to the second period up by two goals on the 'Bellies after a goal from Curtis Dickson early on. New West seemed to have a bit of a sluggish start to the game, looking shaky on a few plays but quickly snapped out of it knowing they were playing in the finals and had no room for error.

Two more goals from Tao and Ben McIntosh would prompt 'Bellie keeper Neil Tyacke to pull himself after fourteen saves and five goals against, being replaced by Brandon Mulligan for the rest of the game. The goalie switch would spark a fire under New West and the rest of the period belonged to them. Leif Mydske would sneak the first of five second period goals past Seidel, followed by power play goals from Brandon Goodwin and Dickson. Daniel McQuade would join in on the fun, but it was Jarrett Toll's impressive fake-out goal to tie the game at six that would send the New West fans into a frenzy and take the 'Bellies into the final period all even with Coquitlam.

Knowing the next goal could quite possibly swing the direction of the game, made for some tight lacrosse to start the third. From way outside the shooting circle, Dickson would give the 'Bellies their first lead of the game with eight minutes gone, but after twenty minutes without a goal it was Matt Beers who would start the game again for the Adanacs to tie it up at seven goals. Matt MaGrotty would put New West ahead again with an impressive goal where everyone thought he was going to shoot left on Dan Lewis and at the last minute switched it up and shot right. The game had been very relaxed on penalty calls by the referees for the majority of the night, but after the New West bench voiced their opinion on a missed interference call, Craig Smith would find himself on the wrong end of a cross checking penalty and put his team down a man.

The 'Bellies did a good job on the PK allowing only one offensive drive from the A's, but when the two minutes were up something seemed to be drained from New West. After playing from behind for four minutes the Adanacs had enough and Travis Cornwall stepped up to score an unbelievable one handed goal up high on Mulligan, with just three minutes left in the game to tie it up once more.

At the one minute mark of the final period there was a flurry of shots on net from the A's as the New West defense just couldn't get it together, and after making four or five consecutive saves on Coquitlam's big guns, it was Jordan Weir who would finally crack Mulligan and get the coveted go ahead goal. 9-8 is how it would stay for game one and at the last second Kevin Crowley would let his distaste be known as he gave A's goaltender Lewis a bit of a shove. From my angle it seemed Lewis went down a little harder than expected, but it wasn't completely over-zealous. Some minor pushing and shoving would be broken up quickly as the refs escorted the players to their dressing rooms.

Fans in the stands expected a lot more penalties and predicted a fight or two, but game one was strictly focused on the win for both teams. As seen in playoffs so far, either one of these teams should not be taken lightly with their impressive records- pre or post. New West will look to home floor advantage to provide them with luck as game two goes down on Thursday night at Queens Park at 8pm; expect Coquitlam to center their attention on overpowering the 'Bellies to control the game and series, and for New West to come out blazing with the focus and intensity that served them so well in the first two rounds.