Burrards bury ’Rocks with late rally

MAPLE RIDGE 10 VICTORIA 9

Old No. 5 had to be proud Friday night, despite the result.

Ranjit Dillon’s former Victoria Shamrocks jersey was raised to the rafters of The Q Centre and retired, but the current version of the team could not provide the fitting outcome for the occasion by dropping a 10-9 Western Lacrosse Association decision to the Maple Ridge Burrards.

Victoria led 8-5 in the third period before being buried under a tsunami of five consecutive Maple Ridge goals to put the visitors ahead 10-8. The run was only stemmed by Josh Fagan’s powerplay goal for Victoria at 15:04, but the tying goal could not be found.

The Shamrocks dropped to 6-2-1 and Maple Ridge moved to 5-3 before a near-capacity crowd in Colwood that became hushed in the third period in the face of the furious Maple Ridge rally.

It was the first visit to the Island for Maple Ridge since its six-game victory over the Shamrocks in last year’s WLA final, which resulted in the first trip to the Mann Cup national final for the Burrards franchise since 1990.

Victoria beat Maple Ridge 12-10 on the Lower Mainland in the first meeting of the season between the clubs on June 11.

The imposing 245-pound, six-foot-eight Mike Triolo led Victoria with three goals while also having a standout night on the penalty kill.

“No two ways about it, Maple Ridge outhustled us in the third period,” said the native of Scarborough, Ont., the tallest player taken in the 2015 NLL draft, when he went in the third round to the Buffalo Bandits. He got no argument from his coach.

“They kept coming at us in the third and took the momentum right away from us, and we could do nothing to stop them,” said Shamrocks bench boss Bob Heyes.

“We didn’t do the simple things like protect the ball. We have to learn from these mistakes.”

Corey Small of Victoria came into the game averaging 5.87 points per game and finished with two goals and two assists for four points. Rhys Duch had a goal and five assists. Casey Jackson, who had 13 goals and 20 points in his previous three games, was held to two assists. Luke Gillespie, Mike Mallory, Ben McIntosh and Dave Taylor scored twice each for Maple Ridge.

Aaron Bold made 22 saves on 29 shots in goal for Victoria before being replaced by Cody Hagedorn in the third period. Frank Scigliano made 28 saves for Maple Ridge.

The Shamrocks visit Maple Ridge on Tuesday night.

BOUNCE SHOTS: Dillon’s No. 5 joins Fred (Whitey) Severson’s No. 8 as Shamrocks jerseys that will not be worn again. The speedy Dillon recorded 450 goals and 788 assists for 1,238 points in 453 WLA games en route to being enshrined into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1984.