VICTORIA 6 LANGLEY 3
First place in the Western Lacrosse Association was put to bed Wednesday night as the Victoria Shamrocks triumphed 6-2 on the road over the Langley Thunder.
The Shamrocks have secured home floor throughout the playoffs as they go in search of their second straight league title.
Scott Ranger, with a pair, Corey Small, Brandon Bull, Mitch McLaren and Rhys Duch all scored for Victoria, which led 2-0 and 5-1 by periods as the Shamrocks improve to 12-1-2 (and 7-1-1 away) with just three home games remaining in the regular season.
Langley falls to 6-8-0 as Athan Iannucci, Daniel McQuade and Ian Poole replied for the Thunder, who were handed their fourth straight setback with the Shamrocks’ fourth straight victory.
Cody Hagedorn earned the win in goal for Victoria facing 34 shots. Mike Lowe took the loss under a barrage of 60 shots.
“We clinch. We had 60 shots, but there weren’t a lot of quality shots,” said Shamrocks head coach Bob Heyes, who was still delighted about grabbing the No. 1 spot.
“I’m happy with that, for sure,” he said. “There is a benefit to finishing first and we’ll definitely take that with home-floor [advantage] throughout.”
He wasn’t, however, overly thrilled with the performance.
“All in all, I thought it was a sloppy game and I thought we could use a bit of a wake-up call,” he said.
On the positive, his team allowed just three goals against and has clamped down defensively over the last four games in which they’ve surrendered a ridiculously low 20 goals against.
“I’m really happy with the way Cody played [in net],” said Heyes, who will now get an opportunity to rest some people for Friday’s game against New Westminster at 7:45 p.m. at The Q Centre, if he so chooses.
Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
