The Western Lacrosse Association championship final took another turn on Tuesday, as one dominating effort was met with a formidable response.
Shaking off last Sunday’s 11-5 loss in Victoria, the New Westminster Salmonbellies retook the lead in their best-of-seven series by blasting the Shamrocks 14-4 before a crowd of approximately 1,300 fans at Queen’s Park Arena.
Powered by a 52-save performance from netminder Alexis Buque and six goals off the stick of Logan Schuss, the Salmonbellies were in complete control Tuesday and head into Friday’s Game 4 on the Island with some forceful momentum and a 2-1 lead.
A warning, though; the Shamrocks had a similar advantage entering Tuesday’s contest, thanks to a sharp effort in the previous game. In other words, don’t book your Mann Cup tickets just yet.
Still, this was a game to savour.
“We wanted to come out faster,” remarked Schuss. “We started strong in Victoria but kind of let our foot off the gas. … We wanted to match that intensity, bring it to this game. It’s pretty easy to get up for games like this when you’re playing in Queen’s Park Arena before all the fans in the arena.”
It was an inauspicious start, as the two teams traded goals before the midway point of the first. Schuss counted the ’Bellies first three goals and completed his first hat trick with a pair of tallies 59 seconds apart to make it 3-1.
Victoria kept up the pressure and appeared to pull within one with three seconds left in the period when Steve Priolo buried the ball behind Buque, but the goal was called back due to a crease violation, and New West defender Mike Messenger quickly fired the ball down floor into the open net to make it 4-1 after 20 minutes.
The ’Rocks outshot New West 28-19 in the first frame but were totally stymied by Buque and a stand-firm defence. They got no traction in the second period either as the Salmonbellies scored five unanswered goals to go ahead 9-1 after 40 minutes.
A series of penalties, a five-minute butt-ending major to Priolo, presented the home team with a golden opportunity to continue the barrage, resulting in four straight extra-man markers.
While Victoria scored three in a row to pull within nine goals, the result was already sealed.
“We transitioned, we did a lot of things we talked about before the game and got a great effort from everyone, from the backend to the front end,” noted New West head coach Steve Goodwin. “We always want to wear them down and we thought we wore them down as the game went on.”
Buque received a loud ovation from the New West faithful when relieved with four minutes left, having faced 56 shots and held the visitors to one goal for 54 minutes.
“We can’t say enough about Buque and the rest of our defence, every game they give us a fighting chance,” added Schuss. “You saw tonight they had one goal going into the final 10 minutes of the game, so it just goes to show how strong we are on defence.”
Kevin Crowley counted three goals and five assists, while playoff scoring leader Mitch Jones tallied twice and set up four others. Connor Robinson also notched a pair, while Schuss picked up three assists.
Coming on the heels of Game 2’s loss, where New West led 3-0 but succumbed to a Victoria run that produced eight goals in 10 minutes, Tuesday’s response was exactly what the doctor ordered, said Schuss.
“We wanted to come out with the same intensity as we did in Victoria. It’s always hard playing over there with their fans – we wanted to have that same intensity but keep piling on,” he said. “It wasn’t just our offence scoring those goals, it was the defence transitioning the ball up the floor and everyone was taking part.”
The focus now is to take the same approach in Game 4 on Friday in Victoria, and not let the home team turn the table.
Game 5 goes Sunday, 6 p.m. at Queen’s Park Arena. A sixth game, if necessary, would be played Aug. 29 in Victoria.
