The Kamloops Rattlers pushed their win streak to three games with a lopsided 11-5 decision of the host Armstrong Shamrocks in Okanagan X-treme Lacrosse League play Friday night at Nor-Val Sports Centre.
The Rattlers surprised the Shamrocks’ normally steady defence with three straight goals by Devon Larsen (3+3), AJ Lockwood (2+2) and JJ Woldum (2+1) in the first period.
The Shamrocks, first overall at 5-3, seemed to get a bit of life in the second period on a pair of goals by leading scorer Steve Clark, and a nice one-timer by Tommy Belenger to close the gap to 5-2 after 40 minutes. But the third period saw more defensive lapses by Armstrong, and Kamloops responded with three quick goals to stretch the lead to 8-3.
Shamrocks’ starter Chad Pieper was replaced by Owen Siddall, but the Kamloops onslaught continued as they scored three more times.
The Shamrocks Dalaney Halifax and Clark, with his hat-trick goal, were able to get a couple late ones past Kamloops netminder Mike Smith to round out the scoring.
The Rattlers, now 4-3, leapfrogged the Kelowna Raiders (3-5) to take over second place.
“We, as a team, were not prepared to start the game. Kamloops caught us flat-footed and made us pay early. We showed a little life in the second period, but that was snuffed out early in the third,” said Pieper.
“We gave them way too many quality scoring chance from in close; we will have a lot of work to do in practice this week in order to get things right going into the Challenge Cup (against the host Vernon Tigers, Friday night at Wesbild Centre).”
Meanwhile, the Tigers turned back the clock for Retro Night and showed flashes of that 70s success by stuffing the Raiders 9-6 Friday night at Civic Arena.
After dropping their last two OXLL tilts, the Cats trailed 2-1 after the first period but steadily gained momentum as the game went along.
“Lots and lots of hustle. Lots and lots of heart,” said an impressed Tigers’ assistant coach Steve Latimer, who couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic.
“It’s always fun to come back and play at the Civic every once in a while. This is the heyday of the Tigers, all those championships back in the 70s. It kind of brings us back to our roots.”
Victor Weins put Kelowna on the board less than two minutes into the game. Kasmer Boudreau, with the first of two goals, opened the scoring for Vernon (3-4) later in the period.
Both netminders – Vernon’s Glen Clissold and Kelowna’s Graham Cousins – came up with big saves to keep the game close early.
Clissold, named third star, ended with 46 saves and added three assists. Cousins had 47 stops.
“I love it (Civic). It’s a lot more atmosphere and I can throw the entire floor so I can get a lot more assists,” smiled Clissold.
Tiger sniper Shane Sargent needed just 54 seconds to ignite the Vernon attack with a powerplay goal in the second period. He added a second goal at 14:09.
Tiger grad Rob Short added to the Vernon offence with a pair of second-period goals as part of his first-star showing. He hadn’t played in the old barn since the BCHL Vernon Vipers faced the Grande Prairie Storm in the Doyle Cup regional hockey finals three years ago.
“It’s a lot less room and it’s a pretty slick floor so you can’t really make as many moves, but as long as you run the picks it should work out,” said Short, who chipped in with a pair of helpers.
“A lot of the nights we don’t have as many runners as we’d like, so we’ve got to play smart. We had some junior call-ups (Austin Williamson and Theo Wagner) and they gave us some extra legs and they bought into the system.”
Short pocketed his third goal with a shorthanded tally in the third period. Boudreau buried an empty-netter to finish off the Raiders.
Second star Wiens, who exhibited some stellar defensive play, and Pho Heng each scored twice for the Raiders.
