The Nanaimo Timbermen didn’t do enough of the little things right to start building a win streak.
The Coastal Windows Timbermen senior A lacrosse team won one of its two weekend games, defeating the Burnaby Lakers 16-11 on Friday on the road before losing 9-6 to the Coquitlam Adanacs on Sunday at Frank Crane Arena.
The T-men gave themselves a chance against the Adanacs, scoring three times in the third period to make the score 7-6 with more than 10 minutes left. But penalty trouble hurt the home team down the stretch, and had the T-men lamenting the opportunities they’d missed all game long.
“We’re making little mistakes like missing passes, missing catches, missing throws, missing loose balls, missing the net,” said Paul Brebber, T-men forward. “And those are the little things you need to win a game.”
It was the third game in five nights for the Timbermen, and the busy schedule had taken a toll – forwards Cody Bremner and Ryan Keith were both out injured.
“The offence did struggle tonight,” said Kaleb Toth, the team’s coach. “They were dropping the ball a lot, making missed passes. I don’t know what that attributes to, it’s not just because Bremner was out of the lineup.”
It was a bit of a step back for the offence, said the coach, after its 16-goal outburst two nights earlier. The Timbermen can’t always rely on winning a goaltender’s duel, Toth said.
“That can’t happen every single game. We’ve got to get three or four goals on transition, we’ve got to get six or seven on offence and then hopefully beat teams by getting 10 or 11 goals and holding them to nine or 10.”
Brebber led the Timbermen with a hat trick on Sunday and Blake Kenny, Graham Palmer and Myles Dennett were the other scorers. Zak Boychuk made 32 saves in defeat.
In Friday’s victory over the Lakers, Bremner had four goals and two assists and Brebber had two goals and four assists. Doug Langlois had two goals and three helpers in that one, Graham Palmer had two and two and Jake Emms also had a two-goal game. Cayle Ratcliff, Myles Kenny, Kyle Dexter and Dennett were the other scorers and Boychuk made 43 saves.
GAME ON … The T-men visit the New Westminster Salmonbellies on Thursday (June 20).
sports@nanaimobulletin.com