The New Westminster Salmonbellies opened the B.C. Junior Lacrosse League playoffs with a first-round win over Delta.
The junior A ’Bellies jumped out to a quick 6-1 lead and then held the fort for a 15-11 victory over the fourth-place-finishing Islanders club at Queen’s Park Arena on Wednesday.
Anthony Malcom led the first-period charge, scoring two of his three markers in the opening seven minutes of play.
Adam Dickson also had a strong start, assisting on three of the Salmonbellies’ early tallies, including Brett Dobray’s game-opener at 1:28 of the period.
But Delta was far from done. The Islanders regrouped and narrowed the gap to a pair of goals, before Dickson closed the period with a goal in the final minute.
From the second period on, it was then anybody’s game, with New West outscoring the Islanders just 8-7.
“We haven’t really been in this close a game all season. We needed something to build off of,” said New Westminster’s Quinn MacKay, who tallied the game-winning goal off the opening faceoff to start the third period.
MacKay created a loose-ball turnover and then outmuscled a Delta defender to score in close at 10 seconds of the final period.
“We let up and let that lead slip away,” added MacKay. “We knew they were going to come in and play their A game. We can’t go into any game thinking we’re going to rollover them.”
New West built up a five-goal lead to start the second period, but Delta rallied on two separate occassions to whittle the lead down to a single goal late in the frame.
Jonathan Phillips, who led the Islanders with three goals and three helpers, scored his hat trick goal in a three-goal flurry four minutes apart to close the deficit to 10-9.
The key for Delta was transition and taking advantage of a rough outing by Salmonbellie starting goalie Ross Bowman, who was replaced by Eric Penney at the 14-minute mark of the middle period.
The former St. Catharines’ keeper came on and stopped 17 shots, while allowing just two third-period counters in nearly 27 minutes of play.
Ryland Hood stopped 36 shots in the Islanders’ cage.
“Transition is going to be a key for sure. … If we can match them on that, we’ll be good for the series,” said Phillips. “We can’t afford those slow starts. … We got to figure that out. That 6-1 lead really cost us the game.”
After McKay’s goal, Delta lost an equipment check charge on Penney, and Johnny Pearson made the Islanders pay, scoring his third goal of the game on the ensuing delay-of-game power play.
Josh Byrne and Luke Gillespie both scored their second goals of the game unassisted to put the outcome safely in New West’s favour.
Game 2 of the best-of-five series will be played at the Sungod Arena in
Delta on Saturday. Game time is 7:30 p.m.
Slowing down the speedy Islanders is at the top of the agenda, said MacKay.
“We just got to slow them down, get a touch on them and get fresh legs out to outrun them,” he said. “We don’t want any of these games to slip away.”
Game 3 of the series will be back at Queen’s Park at the regular home time of Tuesday (July 15) at 8 p.m. If necessary, Games 4 and 5 would be played Saturday in Delta and Sunday in New West, respectively.
The other series
The weekend series between Coquitlam and the Victoria Shamrocks kicks off Saturday at the Coquitlam Sports Centre at 2:30 p.m. Game 2 will be played on the Island Sunday at Westhill Arena at 5 p.m.
