Nothing like a dose of urgency to bring life to a dire situation.
The Burnaby Lakers staved off elimination on Sunday with a 10-8 victory over the Victoria Shamrocks in their Western Lacrosse Association best-of-seven semifinal.
The win put Burnaby in the win column but trailing 3-1 in the series, with Game 5 on Wednesday in Victoria.
While the ‘need to win’ was apparent, it never got to the point of desperation, remarked first-year sniper Josh Byrne, who tallied three times in the contest.
“To a point there was (urgency). I thought we just had to stick to our game plan. A lot of times things go wrong when you try and change things up,” he said.
Burnaby never trailed, but witnessed a potent Shamrock rally that pulled the defending Mann Cup champions within a goal with 2:31 remaining in the third. That’s when the defence and netminder Zak Boychuk stood their ground.
Byrne iced it with 32 seconds left on a solo effort where he circled behind the net and emerged on the right side, beating ‘Rocks netminder Adam Shute.
A textbook finish, but hectic still.
“We just said, ‘Boys let’s stay together here and kill as much clock as we can, get another shot’ and I knew our defence and (Boychuk) would stand up for us,” he said.
Prior to that, Victoria countered two Laker markers with three straight of their own, two by Rhys Duch, to make it 9-8.
The Shamrocks, who’ve orchestrated some impressive momentum swings over the first three games of the series, are always dangerous.
“(Victoria has) a lot of offensive power,” noted Peter McFetridge, who scored midway through the third to give Burnaby an 8-5 lead. “When they got in the six-on-five situations and (scored) a couple of goals there, the worst case scenario runs through your head. But we made good adjustments on our defence and were able to shut them down the last couple of minutes.”
Boychuk made 16 saves in the final 20 minutes, while Dane Stevens’ goal with 6:37 to play stood up as the winner.
Now, to replicate that in the unfriendly confines of Victoria’s Q-Centre, where a vocal house of 2,200 fans will be demanding to see the plug pulled on the Lakers’ season.
“We have to bring intensity, it’s a pretty hard building to play in,” said Byrne. “They’ve got a lot of fans, and guys get fired up in their own barn so we have to take it to them first, come ready to play and have a strong first five minutes.”
In Game 3, Burnaby spent much of the night chasing Victoria and pulled even with 8:05 remaining, but the home team countered 24 seconds later and added two more to win 9-7.
If Burnaby can pull out a win on Wednesday, Game 6 would be played Friday, 6 p.m. at the Bill Copeland Arena.
