The junior A Nanaimo Timbermen, with some of their top talent back in the lineup, earned their first win in a long time.
The T-men defeated the Burnaby Lakers 10-7 in overtime Sunday in B.C. Junior Lacrosse League action at Frank Crane Arena.
“We’ve been practising hard the last couple weeks and especially coming up to this weekend, the boys really started to pay attention and run the things that we wanted them to,” said Dave Bremner, the team’s coach.
Nanaimo got several key players back and the effects of that were seen at both ends of the floor.
“When you don’t have that kind of talent up front to control the ball, control the flow each time up and create scoring opportunities, it becomes a burden on the back end and we were constantly under seige in the back end [in previous games],” Bremner said. “So these guys allowed us to slow and speed up the tempo when we wanted to as opposed to when other teams wanted us to.”
The Lakers scored the opening goal of OT, but the Timbermen responded with four unanswered.
Jake Mickelson led Nanaimo’s attack with a hat trick, while Alec Molander added two goals and five assists. Matt Jung, Hank Wolder, Liam Young, Tyson Black and Ryan Beauchamp were the other scorers and Darian Claxton was the winning goalie with 40 saves.
It was Nanaimo’s first win on the lacrosse floor since July 5, 2015, as the team’s two victories in 2016 were both by forfeit.
GAME ON … Nanaimo has two home games this coming weekend (May 13-14), hosting the Delta Islanders on Saturday and then the Coquitlam Adanacs on Sunday. Both games are 4:30 p.m. starts at Frank Crane Arena.
sports@nanaimobulletin.com