Third-period dominance leads to Game 2 victory

Robert Church (right) celebrates one of his two goals on Tuesday night's Game 1 victory over the Nanaimo Timbermen at Langley Events Centre. Church scored six times and finished with 12 points in a 17-10 Game 2 win in Nanaimo on Thursday night. Ryan Molag file photo

A massive third period has the Langley Thunder one victory away from a spot in the Western Lacrosse Association Finals.

Trailing for much of the first 40 minutes on Thursday night at Frank Crane Arena to the host Nanaimo Timbermen -- the Timbermen led for all but 7:19 of the first two periods -- Langley scored eight unanswered third period goals for the 17-10 come-from-behind victory in game two of the teams' semi-final series.

Nanaimo led 6-5 after one period and 10-9 through 40 minutes before Langley dominated the final frame.

The Thunder now lead the best-of-five series 2-0 with a chance to close things out on Tuesday (August 8) at Langley Events Centre. Game time is 6:30pm.

In game one, captain Connor Robinson paced the offence with six goals and he was right back at it on Thursday, scoring five more times and finishing with seven points. But while Robinson had  sock trick in the opener, Robert Church duplicated that feat in game two, scoring six times to go along with six assists to finish with a dozen points. Curtis Dickson also had a seven-point game for Langley with a pair of goals and five helpers.

The rest of the offence saw Dane Dobbie (1-3), Nathaniel Kozevnikov (1-2), Reece Callies (1-1) and Chase Scanlan (1-0) also find the back of the net.

Frank Scigliano made 38 saves in the Thunder goal, including stopping all 15 Timbermen shots in the third period.

The Timbermen were led by three goals from Ryan Sheridan with Zach Manns (2-1), Brett McIntyre (1-3), Colton Lidstone (1-1), Taggert Clark (1-1), Ethan Ticehurst (1-1) and Nate Wade (1-0) providing the rest of the offence. Justin Geddie finished with 34 saves in the Nanaimo net.

Special teams did not play much of a factor in the outcome as Langley was 1-2 on the power-play while the Timbermen were 0-for-1 but did score a short-handed goal.

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