New West Steals Game in Third Period

by Kyle Richardson BURNABY - Instead of playing a full sixty minute game the New Westminster Salmonbellies played a twenty minute, third period of lacrosse on Friday night and came out 9-7 winners in Burnaby. For the first two frames, New West was out played and trailed 4-1 and 7-4 at the intermissions. The third period was the difference. Credit the Bellies fitness level, as they had enough left in the tank to complete the comeback and outscore the Lakers 5-0 in the final period and extend their winning streak to three games. With just over eleven minutes to play in the game, it looked like Burnaby was going to hold on for the win when Jordan McBride potted his team leading 17th goal of the season on the power play, cutting the deficit to 7-5. That seemed to spark the team as they controlled momentum for the remainder of the game. In the final four minutes of play, New West showed signs of last year’s team that went 17-1 in the regular season, in a display of pure dominance. Cliff Smith pulled the Bellies within one, scoring on a breakaway making it 7-6 with three minutes to play. Less than a minute after Smith’s goal, while playing in his first game as a Salmonbellie, Scott Stewart walked through the Laker defence and tied the game at 7. Fifty seconds after that, defensive stalwart Dave Morgan picked up a loose ball and sent Kyle Ross on a partial breakaway, Ross made no mistake tucking home his career high seventh goal of the season and first game winning goal of his career, giving the Bellies an 8-7 lead. Chris Seller iced the game with his second goal of the night on an empty net to help finish off the Burnaby Lakers. This was the second meeting between these two teams this season. New West is now 2-0 against Burnaby this year having already beat them 10-7 at home back on June 4th. They will close out their regular season series on Thursday July 30th at Queens Park Arena. Goaltender Matt Roik was superb in backstopping the come from behind win. Trailing 7-4 to start the third, New West needed to come up big defensively and Roik was perfect in the final period stopping all seven shots thrown his way. He made 26 saves on 33 shots picking up his fourth win on the season and now has a record of 4-1-1. On the offensive side of the ball, New West picked up scoring by committee. Eight Salmonbellies had two point nights including, Jordan McBride (1G 1A), Peter McFetridge (1G 1A), Dave Morgan (2A), Chris Seller (2G), Cliff Smith (1G 1A), Martin Cummings (1G 1A), Scott Stewart (1G 1A) and Kyle Ross (1G 1A). The Bellies now sit in second place in the W-L-A standings with a 7-3-1 record. They trail the first placed Victoria Shamrocks by one point, although Victoria has two games in hand. New West will now look to a pivotal game on Thursday night at Q-P-A against the rival Coquitlam Adanacs. Having split the first two games this season, Thursday’s game will decide who wins the regular season series and might help clinch home floor advantage in the playoffs. The action gets underway at 7:45.