he Port Coquitlam Saints scored nine goals in the second period to defeat the Burnaby Lakers 14-10 in their BC Junior Lacrosse League game Monday at Copeland Arena.
The win keeps the Saints abreast the Victoria Shamrocks in the battle for fourth place and home-floor advantage in a wild-card playoff. Each team has 18 points, but PoCo has a game in hand.
The Saints broke open a tight-checking game that had the Lakers ahead 3-2 at the first intermission by scoring in bunches of three after the break.
Dylan Foulds got the trifecta of trés started 1:13 into the second period. Then, 45 seconds later, Carson Rees put the visitors in front 4-3. Brodie Gillespie’s second goal of the game gave PoCo a 5-3 cushion before Jordan Gabriele got that back for the Lakers.
But it took the Saints just 25 seconds to resume rolling as Rees launched their second three-goal run that put them ahead 8-4. A goal by Burnaby’s Jesse Gastaldo, his second of the game, stanched the flow of goals into the Lakers’ net for all of nine seconds. That’s when Clarke Walter put the visitors back up by four, 9-5. Mickey Fitzpatrick and Walter’s second of the game put PoCo in front 11-5 before the hosts got one of those back with 3:14 left in the frame.
Carson Rees and Walter’s hat trick goal ballooned PoCo’s lead to 13-6 just over two minutes into the third period. And while Burnaby managed to outscore the Saints, 4-1, the rest of the way, it was nowhere near enough.
Walter added five assists to his three goals to lead the Saints’ attack, while Gillespie, Foulds and Fitzpatrick each had four-point nights.
The win continued a bounce-back weekend for PoCo following a 13-6 loss to the powerhouse Coquitlam Adanacs on Friday. The Saints got back into the win column Saturday with a 22-9 pasting of the last-place Nanaimo Timbermen at Frank Crane Arena.
In that game, 10 Saints scored multiple points led by Walter’s seven goals and two assists.
PoCo has four games remaining in the regular season, three of them against teams lower in the standings. The other is against the Langley Thunder, who are in third place but only two points ahead of the Saints and Shamrocks.
Victoria’s three remaining games include two against Nanaimo before they close out the regular season against the Delta Islanders.
