The Burnaby Lakers may have awoken a sleeping giant at their B.C. Junior Lacrosse League matchup with Delta.
The last-placed Lakers played one of their strongest periods of lacrosse this season but finished with two of their weakest en route to a 19-11 loss to the first-place Islanders.
The junior Lakers bombed Delta starting goalie Matt Keith with six goals in the opening 12 minutes of play and added another three on backup Cam Overby to lead the first period 9-5 at the Bill Copeland Sports Centre on Sunday.
But Keith returned to start the middle period and showed few ill effects of shellshock, allowing just one goal early in the frame on Ryan Vogrig’s hat trick goal at 5:37.
Keith stoned the Lakers the rest of the way, kicking out 34 saves, while the offensive did the rest, outscoring their Burnaby hosts 14-2 in the final two periods for the Islanders sixth consecutive victory without a defeat.
Aged-up intermediate star Tre Leclaire led the visiting Islanders with a career-high 11 points, including nine assists.
“In the first period we were all over the floor. We rocked their goalie but when he came back he was a whole new player,” said the 20-year-old Vogrig.
Delta scored in the opening minute of the second period and tallied four more times in a seven-minute span to knot the contest at 10-10 with half the game still to play.
Burnaby’s star righthander Tyler Vogrig fell to the floor in a freak accident with Aidan Milburn and a Delta defender and had to leave the game under his own power with what appeared to be a knee injury.
The Islanders took advantage and potted four more goals in four minutes to take the lead 14-10.
Without last season’s rookie of the year on the floor, Burnaby’s attack got fewer looks at the Delta goal for the remainder of the game.
Adam Wagner got Burnaby’s final goal of the game in the third period.
Delta outshot Burnaby 70-48 in the wide open contest.
The Lakers fell to 1-6 with the loss.
“The big part is our ball possession,” said Ryan, who was playing in his second game since returning from NCAA Division II Wingate University. “We do have a younger team than last year, but we’re starting to build as a team. This game really taught us what we have to work at.”
Aidan Milburn led the Lakers with a goal and four assists, while Tyler Kirkby chipped in with four points, including an underhand whip shot that drove Keith from the net in the opening period.
Last week, Burnaby also dropped a 13-10 decision to the Saints in Port Coquitlam, but the final score was not wholly indicative of the run of play.
The Lakers trailed 13-4 at one stage of the third period before rattling off six unanswered markers to make the score somewhat respectable.
Mitch McDole and Kirby led the Lakers with five-point outings. Milburn and Tyler Vogrig both collected hat tricks in the loss to PoCo.
Milburn currently leads the league in scoring with 19 goals and 35 total points.
Burnaby has a difficult week ahead of them.
On Wednesday, the Lakers take on the junior Adanacs in Coquitlam. Burnaby will also travel to Victoria on Saturday for a date with the second-place junior Shamrocks at the Q Centre.
