It wasn’t such a sweet homecoming Friday night at The Q Centre for the eight former Victoria Junior Shamrocks who ply their trade in Senior A lacrosse with the Nanaimo Timbermen.
But it was for veteran forward Chris Wardle, who scored on his return to the Shamrocks after winning the National Lacrosse League pro championship last week with the Colorado Mammoth. Also scoring in his Shamrocks season debut was Brad McCulley, who was with the NLL-finalist Buffalo Bandits.
The Shamrocks won the Western Lacrosse Association’s Island derby 12-8 before a crowd of 2,388 on Indigenous Celebration Night.
The Shamrocks (6-1) got offensive production from their back end with defenders Jackson Nishimura, Dallas Wade and Patrick Corbett scoring during a key stretch. Nishimura was especially impressive in adding two assists on the night. The 25-year-old came out of the Toronto Beaches Junior A team to be selected 26th overall in the NLL draft by the New England Blackwolves, now the Albany FireWolves, where the lean six-foot-two performer is a loose-ball scooper extraordinaire.
“Our back end is super athletic and we try to use that to our advantage,” said Nishimura.
“We have a lot of faith in our offence. But if the defenders see a chance to jump in on attack, we take it.”
So much so that Nishimura looked like a slick forward with an artful breakaway goal that was the score of the night. He said he picked the move up by watching a teammate in junior.
“We are at our best when we run the floor, from the back or the forwards, and the guys got after it tonight,” said Shamrocks head coach Mike Simpson.
Victoria also got timely goaltending from Pete Dubenski. The Shamrocks killed off a five-minute major in the third period to seal the deal.
“I thought our short-man unit had its best game of the season,” said Simpson.
Larson Sundown and Marshal King scored twice each for Victoria. Also scoring were Wardle, McCulley, Jesse King, Jacob Ruest and Jake Foster.
“We have a lot of belief in our team,” said the flash-quick Nishimura.
“And at home, we take a lot of energy from the crowd.”
Evan Messenger kept up with the old home week theme, The fine two-way Timbermen forward, a former Shamrocks player out of the Delta Islander juniors, scored twice against his former team but that didn’t save the Timbermen from dipping to 4-5 on the season.
The T-Men are at Cam Neely Arena in Maple Ridge to play the Burrards on Sunday before hosting the Shamrocks in the back end of the Island derby Thursday night at Frank Crane Arena in the Harbour City in a game to be broadcast on Shaw.
