Timbermen stay alive, force game five

by Gary Ahuja

Reece Callies and the Langley Thunder fell 12-6 to the Nanaimo Timbermen on August 25 at Nanaimo's Frank Crane Arena. The Thunder lead the Western Lacrosse Association Finals three games to one. Ryan Molag LEC photo

With their backs against the wall, the Nanaimo Timbermen staved off elimination to extend the Western Lacrosse Association Finals. Playing in front of their home crowd at Frank Crane Arena, the Timbermen scored five first-period goals for the 12-6 wire-to-wire victory on Thursday night in game four of the WLA Finals over the Langley Thunder.

The Thunder lead the best-of-seven series three games to win with the series shifting back to Langley Events Centre on Saturday (August 27) with a 7:00pm start time.

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Prior to game four, Nanaimo was only ahead for a total of 10:07 of the 190 minutes (game three featured a 10-minute overtime period) but Thursday saw the Timbermen score 5:23 into the contest and never look back, holding a multi-goal lead the entire way in earning their first win of the series.

“You have to give Nanaimo credit, their backs were against the wall, a do-or-die situation and they came out with more energy than us, and they executed better. We made a lot of dropped passes of balls early in the game and it resulted in transition goals and just poor play,” said Langley coach Rod Jensen.

“We (need) to execute better. We were dropping balls, turnovers, you can’t do that against an athletic team like Nanaimo.”

The Timbermen led 5-1 after a period and 9-3 through 40 minutes.

Langley did get the deficit down to four early in the third period with a pair of power-play goals but could get no closer as the Timbermen closed with three of the final four goals.

Timbermen goaltender Devlin Shanahan – who did not start in game three – manned the crease on Thursday and finished with 37 saves and was the game’s first star.

Taggart Clark and Teioshontateh McComber were the second and third stars, respectively, after each player scored a hat trick with Clark finishing with five points and McComber with four for Nanaimo. Adam Wiedemann and Ethan Ticehurst both scored a pair of goals and Jerome Thompson had one.

Dane Dobbie led Langley with three goals and four points and Curtis Dickson had a goal and three helpers with Connor Robinson (one goal, one assist) and Matt Abbott providing the rest of the offence.

Langley Thunder goaltender Frank Scigliano charges out to challenge Nanaimo's Adam Wiedemann for a loose ball during game four action of the WLA Finals on August 25 at Nanaimo's Frank Crane Arena. Ryan Molag LEC photo

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