If they could, the New Westminster Salmonbellies would re-do their performance from Saturday’s season opener.
A cold start and a chillier second period resulted in New West falling 7-5 to the Coquitlam Adanacs to kick-off the Western Lacrosse Association season.
While they took a 2-1 lead into the middle frame, thanks to goals by Sean Lundstrom and Tyler Kirkby, the Bellies were out-scored 4-1 in the middle frame and struggled to create scoring chances against Coquitlam’s Dan Lewis.
By the time the Adanacs’ Matt Delmonico made it 6-4 just 3:57 into the third, with his team’s third powerplay marker, New West seemed out of gas.
“You win as a team and you lose as a team. I thought we had a lot of good looks but we didn’t get enough goals as a team,” said captain Curtis Hodgson. “I thought we had some good transition opportunities but its hard to win when you score five goals. We need to be better in putting up some more goals and cleaning up some mental mistakes that gave Coquitlam some easy looks.”
Lundstrom finished with a pair of markers, while Ben Davies and Dane Sorenson rounded out the offence.
Netminder Eric Penney turned aside 27 shots in the loss, while Lewis made 29 saves at the other end.
While in the ball park when it comes to goals against, the chances of winning a game with only five goals on the board in this era is slim to none. It's something that is a product of unfamiliarity, rust and fatigue, head coach Steve Goodwin said. It'll be a stronger start in their home opener, he promised.
“That’s what we’re expecting. I hope we won’t come out as flat as we did (Saturday), we were really flat coming out. We expect the guys to really be a lot more ready to play… A lot of it is on fitness, you start making mistakes as things break down and you can’t do that," said Goodwin.
Hodgson agreed.
“Chemistry has been a strength with this team the past few years and I think at the start of the season we’ve got a lot of young faces in (the lineup) and it is something that takes a little bit of time to (gel)," he said. "I love the way our system is but it’s a matter of us making some adaptations and responding because if we play like that we’re not going to win many games."
New West now turns its attention to tonight’s (Thursday) home opener, 7 p.m. against the Nanaimo Timbermen.
“I hope we won’t come out as flat as we did (Saturday), we were really flat coming out. We expect the guys to really be a lot more ready to play,” added Goodwin.
All members of New West minor lacrosse, including family, get into the game for free, while minor Bellies players have a chance to win prizes in a home-opening raffle.
