The good news for the Vernon Tigers is they matched the offensive output of their first three Thompson Okanagan Senior Lacrosse games combined.
The not-so-good news is they still fell 15-13 to the host Kelowna Raiders Wednesday night at Memorial Arena.
Trailing 11-6 to start the third period, the Tigers, now 0-5, rallied with seven goals in the final 20 minutes, aided by some undisciplined play from the 4-2 Raiders. They tied the game 13-13, but Kelowna converted twice more for the win.
“We made it interesting in the third period for sure,” said Tigers’ head coach Bryan Cope. “They (Raiders) lost it a little bit and we capitalized. Our key guys stepped up and they really started putting the ball in the net. They looked like they were hungry to score.
“It was the first period of the year we won. The guys just go to buy into the system and it’ll come. Once we get a couple of our guys back, it should be interesting.”
Trevor McEachnie (3+3), Brennan Plante (3+1), Kasmer Boudreaux (2+4), Kirk Krause (2+2), Amrit Dhoot (1+2), Casey Sherriff and Tony Minchenko supplied Vernon’s offence.
The Raiders’ scoring was provided by captain Jacob Illichmann (4+2), Joe Brown (3+3), Luke Bailey (2+4), Chris Phillips (1+5) and veteran Pho Heng (1+5).
The Tigers played with just 13 runners and quickly fell behind 5-1 after the first period.
“Our first periods all year have been rough on us,” said Cope. “We can’t seem to get out of the gate.”
Ivor Sandaker recorded 29 saves for the Cats, while Graham Cousins made 21 stops for the win.
Kelowna took 33 penalty minutes to Vernon’s 10.
Meanwhile, the Wednesday night game between the Armstrong Shamrocks and Kamloops Rattlers was postponed after the Rattlers’ Dave Bannister (formerly of the Kelowna Raiders) died Tuesday night from a heart attack.
The will be played at a later date.
The 4-1 Rattlers are scheduled to visit Vernon on Friday, May 25 at Wesbild Centre, while the 2-2 Shamrocks are in Kelowna that night to face the Raiders.
