Dobbie, Dickson lead the way as Thunder win fourth straight

In six games this season, Dane Dobbie has now scored 24 goals, with 13 of those coming in a pair of games against the Burnaby Lakers. In the WLA season opener (photo above), Dobbie scored six times in a 20-5 victory, and he did one better on Friday night in Burnaby as he scored seven times to lead the Langley Thunder to a 16-13 win over the Lakers. Ryan Molag LEC file photo

A dominant second period helped the Langley Thunder hold off the Burnaby Lakers. 

The Thunder travelled to Burnaby's Bill Copeland Arena on Friday night and outscored the hosts 9-1 over those 20 minutes as they escaped the Swamp with a 16-13 victory in Western Lacrosse Association action. The win was a fourth straight for Langley, which improved them to 5-1, while the Lakers saw their record fall to 1-5.

Early on, it was all Lakers as Burnaby scored three times in the first 2:59 for the quick 3-0 lead and after the Thunder finally got on the board, it was still 6-3 Lakers with under four minutes to play in the opening frame. But Langley would close the gap to within one prior to intermission and then dominated the middle frame by scoring nine of the period's 10 goals for a 14-7 lead. And that seven-goal cushion came in handy as Burnaby outscored Langley 6-2 in the third period.

Dane Dobbie led the Thunder with seven goals and nine points and was the game's first star. In two games against Burnaby this season, Dobbie has scored 13 goals. He has 24 on the season, which leads the WLA heading into the rest of the weekend's games. While Dobbie was doing his damage from the left-side, Curtis Dickson was unstoppable on the right-side as he finished with four goals and four assists to earn third star honours.

Connor Robinson (1+3) and Kyle Brunsch (0+4) each had four-point games with Tristan Kirkham (2+1), Jordan Roberts (1+2) and Bobby Kidd III (1+2) each chipping in with three-points.

Frank Scigliano stopped 28 of 41 shots for his fifth victory of the season. 

Burnaby's Toron Ecclesston (2+6), Jacob Dunbar (4+0) and Connor Watson (2+1) led the Lakers with multi-goal games while WakeRiat Bowhunter (1+1), Ty Ewen, Laszlo Henning and Connor Goodwin each scored a goal. Keegen Melenychuk finished with 40 saves on 55 shots.

The Thunder power play did have a breakout game as the unit entered the night sixth out of the seven teams in terms of percentage at .261. But on Friday night, the unit was 5-for-8 (.625) and their penalty kill was 3-for-3 while also scoring once short-handed.

Langley is back in action on June 20 at 7:00pm with a visit to the Poirier Sports Complex to face the Coquitlam Adanacs. It is the first of back-to-back games for the Thunder as the following night (June 21) they host the Maple Ridge Burrards at Langley Events Centre. Game time is 7:30pm.

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