Shamrocks strike first, take game one

It was not the start the Langley Thunder were looking for.

The Thunder allowed 10 first period goals and trailed 10-4 through 20 minutes as they dropped a 16-9 decision to the host Victoria Shamrocks at the Q Centre on Saturday afternoon in game one of the BC Junior A Lacrosse League championship series.

Game two of the series goes Sunday (July 31) at Langley Events Centre with a 4:00pm start time.

Kyle Brunsch (three goals, two assists) and Stuart Phillips (two goals, four assists) paced the Thunder attack with Noah Armitage, Cody Malawsky and Isaac Ngyou scoring one goal apiece.

The Shamrocks’ Patrick Dodds and Trent DiCicco each had two goals and six points while Noah Manning (five assists), Mitchell Sandberg (three goals, two assists) and Casey Wilson (two goals, three assists) finished with five points apiece.

Victoria heavily outshot Langley, 69-37 with each team using both goaltenders.

Adam Bland stopped 24 of 32 shots while Daniel Ramage made four saves on five shots for Victoria while for the Thunder, Brayden Wandler stopped 51 of 64 shots and Troy Cuzzetto had two saves on five shots.

The game was also relatively penalty-free with Langley receiving three power plays to the Shamrocks’ one, although the only special teams’ goal was a Victoria short-handed marker.