St. Catharines up 3-1, Victoria advances

August 3rd, 2008 by Lauren Ward

Last night in Virgil the St. Catharines Athletics finished winning one game and then won another from scratch to take a commanding 3-1 lead over the Six Nations Arrows in their semi-final best of seven. The official score for game two is 14-8, and game four finished 9-7. Across the country the Victoria Shamrocks completed their three game sweep of the New Westminster Salmonbellies, knocking them out by a score of 10-7.

After dangerous floor conditions at the Bill Burgoyne Arena got game two called off in the second period on Wednesday night, the teams took to the floor last night to finish game two prior to playing game four. The game began with an 8-6 St. Catharines lead and that only increased as the game went on, with Joey Resetarits, John Arnold, Dan Williams, Corey Small, Andrew Potter and Matt Eckert all scoring to bring the A’s total up to 14. Holden Vyse and Cody Jamieson each scored for the Arrows.

After a 30 minute break, game four began which saw the two teams tied 5-5 after two periods. The A’s outscored the Arrows 4-2 in the third to take the win, with Small notching two and Resetarits and Brandon Niesink scoring one each. Zack Boychuk made 42 saves for the A’s, including 13 in the third. Angus Goodleaf stopped 30 of 39 for the Arrows. Game five will take place tonight at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Six Nations at 7:00 PM EST.

In Victoria last night the Shamrocks got out to a good start, going up 6-2 in the first period but were promptly shutout in the second while New West scored three to bring the game within reach at 6-5. Kyle Belton struck just 46 seconds into the third for New West to tie things back, but Joel Henry quickly replied at 1:12 to put the Shamrocks back out in front 7-6. Eric Lewthwaite tied it up again 7-7 at 2:44 but that would be the last time any of the Salmonbellies found the back of the net, with Cory Conway, Reed MacPhail and Michael Pires each scoring in the final four minutes of the game to end it 10-7. Matt Flindell made 41 saves for the Shamrocks.

The Victoria Shamrocks will now face the Burnaby Lakers in the BCJALL finals. The best-of-five starts tonight at Bear Mountain Arena in Victoria at 7:00 PM PST.

Ward began covering lacrosse for The Lacrosse Journal in 2005 and became its editor-in-chief a year later. Email her at lauren.ward@nllinsider.com.

Rate This Story: