Victoria Shamrocks head to Burnaby on Monday up 2 games in WLA Semi-Finals

Victoria Shamrocks at Burnaby Lakers Semi-Final game 3 preview

Monday August 7th, 6pm, Bill Copeland arena

Victoria leads best of 7 series 2-0

Written by Justis Doucet

The Shamrocks look to take a three game stronghold on the regular season champion Burnaby Lakers on Monday at the Bill Copeland arena. The Shamrocks are 1-1 in Burnaby this season, and pulled out a strong 9-8 win in the series opener last Thursday.

Victoria looks to carry momentum from the final two periods of Saturday night’s game where they outscored the Lakers 8-1, after falling behind 5-1 after the opening twenty minutes. The first frame was eerily similar to Victoria’s last home game of the season, also against the Lakers. In both games, Victoria fell behind 5-1, and in both games, the offence found its stride in the second, but the difference between the win and loss, was the Shamrocks defence. After Burnaby scored five times on nineteen shots in the first, Aaron Bold and Company denied twenty-four of the next twenty-five, including all of only eight third period shots allowed. Leading Victoria to outscore the top seeded Lakers five nothing in the stanza, with Casey Jackson’s game tying goal and Evan Messenger’s game winner a mere one hundred eighty seconds apart.

After a seven point night, with three goals and four assists, Corey Small leads the playoffs in assists with nine and points with thirteen. Burnaby’s Robert Church is second in points with then and first in goals with seven. Victoria and Burnaby have been even in special teams thus far, with both squads 3/8 up a man (37.5%) which means they’ve also killed five of eight.

A Shamrocks win would mean a possible series clinching game at The Q Centre on Wednesday, a Laker win means the series would go at least five games, with game five in Burnaby on Friday.

Watch the game on Pay Per View: http://wlalacrosse.com/view/wla/wla-tv

Live game stats: http://westernlacrosse.wttstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=3170680

Playoff stats: http://westernlacrosse.wttstats.pointstreak.com/scoringleaders.html?leagueid=258

Shamrock stats: http://westernlacrosse.wttstats.pointstreak.com/teamplayerstats.html?teamid=673543&seasonid=17341

Next game (HOME) (Game 4 in the best of 7 series): Wednesday August 9th, 6pm, The Q Centre, Tickets at victoriashamrocks.com, by calling 250-478-7625, team store at 967 Langford Parkway or the arena at noon on game day.