Triple Header Closes Out Regular Season

Queen's Park, Bill Copeland Arena, and Coquitlam Sports Centre were the three venues for the last day of action in the British Columbia Junior A Lacrosse League.

Game one of this fine Sunday afternoon saw the Timbermen take on the Salmonbellies at Queen's Park.

Nanaimo came out hard, keeping New West scoreless in the first. Steve Higgs scored the first two for the T-Men, followed by a power play marker from Mitch McLaren.

Kyle Bazansky opened the second with a goal for Nanaimo before New West finally got on the board thanks to Mike Paul. New West Captain Curtis Manning kept Salmonbellies' morale up, scoring a great short handed goal with a pass from Richard Singer. 

With only 58 seconds left in the period Kevin Crowley came out of a scramble for the ball, and fired it past Tom Wray.

Kyle Belton evened up the score for New West in the third, capitalizing from Sean Tessarolo sneaking out of his net for the extra man.

Ryan Clark took advantage of a New West holding penalty with a couple of minutes to go in regulation time to get the T-Men up by one. But Kyle Buchanan squashed the win for Nanaimo, scoring with only 25 seconds left. 

Overtime saw Kyle Belton scoring again, with a great feed from Kevin Crowley. With 22 seconds left, New West was awarded a penalty shot; Jordan McBride was the man for the 'Bellies, and made sure to end the game with a 2 goal lead.

Final from overtime in New West was 7-5 for the Salmonbellies.

Game two was in Coquitlam where the Adanacs were facing the Shamrocks. I arrived during the first intermission with the score tied at 1. 

Coquitlam’s three goals in the second from Travis Cornwall, John Lintz, and Calvin Craig all came before the halfway mark. 

Victoria’s lone goal of the period was a beauty- Cory Conway faked a pass from just outside the crease and then snipered it past Tyler Richards.

The last goals of the game came from Kelly Kilpatrick for the Adanacs, and Cayle Ratcliffe had a stunner of a marker, in all alone, a little fake out, and then top shelf past Richards.

With just a few minutes to go, Victoria pulled Matt Flindell from the net for an extra attacker, and just as he made it to the bench Coquitlam stole the ball and were on the break. Flindell made it look like there was a water-slide between him and the bench; diving from way outside the crease and still making the unbelievable stop, it deserves more than a mention!

The Adanacs win their last home 5-3 against the Shamrocks.

The final game of the night/regular season was in Burnaby to see the first place Lakers take on the last place Stickmen.

When I arrived halfway through the first the score was 3-2 for the Lakers. By the looks of their performance this evening, Burnaby wanted to exit the season in style.

Jamie Lincoln impressed the crowd with six goals- bringing his goal total to 63 for the season. Dane Dobbie scored four of his own, and Stephan Leblanc threw in three for the night as well.

Jordy Willing, Matt Hannah and Mike King got on the score sheet in the first for the Stickmen but both Brandon Smith and Cody Lewis were overwhelmed in net by the Burnaby offense.

The second frame saw 11 goals for the Lakers including Josh Funk’s first marker of the season- what timing!

John Ballantine, Jackson Decker, and Mitch Dibblee all had great looking goals but as I said before, all Stickmen efforts were overshadowed by the high Burnaby score.

The third frame was played in running time with not much action- a goal from Shawn Dhaliwal and Dane Dobbie’s final marker of the night, and a couple of penalties for both teams.

Between Lewis and Smith in net for Surrey, they faced a total of 73 shots from the Lakers. Angus Goodleaf and Adam Meakes had it easier on the other end, facing 28 Stickmen shots.

Final score was 22-6 in Burnaby’s favor.