The New Westminster Salmonbellies were blindsided by a near-perfect period of lacrosse in Burnaby Friday.
After scraping out an 11-10 win over the winless Maple Ridge Burrards just the night before, the senior A 'Bellies got behind early and never fully recovered before losing their first game of the Western Lacrosse Association season 15-11 to the upstart Lakers on Friday.
"Our mindset coming in was we wanted to play huge," said Lakers' Mike Brascia, who intercepted a pass in the defensive zone and opened the scoring in the third minute. "We knew (playing New West) would be the ultimate test, so we wanted to come out with guns blazing."
And come out the Lakers did.
Burnaby got ahead 60 when rookie Justin Salt sidestepped a defenceman and buried his first senior A goal behind starter Tyler Richards.
The Lakers outshot the visitors 18-8 in the opening period and by a long shot overall, nearly doubling the attempts on goal 59-30.
But the Salmonbellies did not make it easy despite a seven-goal deficit early in the second stanza on Jones's second of the game.
The 'Bellies rallied to close the gap to five goals with the help of a secondperiod hat trick from Jeff Zywicki.
New Westminster pulled out all the stops in the final frame, outscoring Burnaby 6-5 in the period, but on each occasion, the Lakers found an answer.
With the scored 13-10 following a pair of longrange lazers by New West's Alex Gajic a minute apart and with the Fishmen on a five-minute power play, Dhaliwal scored a timely first shorthanded goal of the season on a bouncer from close range.
Gajic eventually scored on the power play to bring the deficit down to three again with more than five minutes still left to play.
But Burnaby rookie Casey Jackson, the third overall pick in the WLA junior draft, counted the first goal of his senior career to put the game away. Joe Bell got the win in goal for Burnaby.
"It's a huge team builder. Our offence was going and our defence was so solid. Now other teams know we're a potential contender and can't take us lightly," Brasica added.
By the middle of the second period, New West employed some unusual strategy, giving up the extra man in the defensive zone and positioning Zywicki deep in the Burnaby end.
The ploy worked with the Ontario sniper collecting his fourth goal of the game.
"We try to generate offence any way we can. ... It kind of worked," said Zywicki, who leads his team with eight goals and 20 points.
But Dhaliwal's second goal on the five-minute shortman threw a wrench into the works.
"After that five-minute penalty, if we could have made it to two - a two-goal lead is not safe in lacrosse," Zywicki added.
The loss dropped New West into a tie for second place with the Lakers, both at 3-1.
Thursday night is Seats for Soldiers IV at Queen's Park Arena.
The Salmonbellies will meet the Langley Thunder, the team that knocked New Westminster out of the playoffs last season. Game time is 7: 45 p.m.
