The cavalry arrived Friday night for the Victoria Shamrocks, but it wasn鈥檛 enough for the team to ride away with its first win of the Western Lacrosse Association season.
Despite the return of Rhys Duch, Jesse Kings, Tyler Burton, Greg Harnett and Steve Priolo from National Lacrosse League playoff duty, the Shamrocks were beaten 8-5 by the Burnaby Lakers in front of 1,898 in attendance at The Q Centre.
The loss leaves Victoria winless at 0-3, while the Lakers stay unbeaten at 3-0.
The Shamrocks, with their full lineup finally in place, came storming out of the gates and led 3-0 after one period.
But midway through the second frame, Daryl Veltman scored the first of five unanswered goals by the visitors to keep Burnaby atop the standings.
鈥淚n the second period there was some pushback by them and maybe our confidence is a little fragile right now and we couldn鈥檛 recover,鈥� Shamrocks head coach Bob Heyes said.
鈥淥ur goaltending was good but in the third period we got outworked and that can鈥檛 happen, especially when we led 5-4 early in the period.鈥�
King, Casey Jackson and Keegan Bell gave the Shamrocks the early lead and even when the Lakers started to hit stride in the second with goals from Lazlo Henning and Dane Stevens, Ben McCullough and Chris Boushy kept the Shamrocks in the driver鈥檚 seat. But Veltman鈥檚 goal at 11:39 of the second turned the tide and the Lakers never looked back.
And when Victoria pushed in the third, netminder Eric Penny was there to shut the door for Burnaby. Penny finished with 45 saves, as did Cody Hagedorn in the Shamrocks net.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a lesson learned for us,鈥� said Heyes. 鈥淎nd we鈥檒l put it behind us because we can鈥檛 keep going like this. We need to turn this ship around.鈥�
Next up for the Shamrocks is their first road game of the season, Thursday night in Nanaimo against the Timbermen.
