Portland Lumberjax win the West to earn trip to Buffalo

May 11th, 2008 by Lauren Ward

After clinging to a precarious lead for an entire half and battling to keep it even in the third it almost didn’t seem fair for the Portland Lumberjax to go down 10-9 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Maybe that’s why they kicked off a six-goal run not even thirty seconds later, pouring the foundation for a 16-12 win over the Calgary Roughnecks to capture the Western Division title.

Ryan Powell and Peter Morgan went back and forth in that pivotal stretch, with Powell scoring three of his four goals in the fourth and Morgan adding his third and fourth of the game. Dan Dawson punched in 10 points with five goals and five assists while Derek Malawsky added one and seven and Brodie Merrill scored one, helped on two, and picked up 13 looseballs. Dallas Eliuk, who came into the game early in the second to replace an injured Matt Disher, saved the day with 35 stops on 43 shots.

For the Roughnecks, Kaleb Toth had three goals and three assists, and Scott Ranger and Jeff Shattler had five points apiece.

The Jax will travel to Buffalo next Saturday to take on the Bandits in the Champion’s Cup.