Heartbreaker: Shamrocks a loss from ouster

The Victoria Shamrocks will have to win out in the Western Lacrosse Association final if they want to advance to the 2018 Mann Cup national Senior ‘A’ lacrosse championship series.

A furious Victoria rally fell short, as the Shamrocks again paid for a slow start in an 8-7 double-overtime loss to the Maple Ridge Burrards on Thursday night at Cam Neely Arena on the Lower Mainland.

Regulation time ended 6-6 and the first, straight-time 10-minute overtime wound up 7-7 before the Burrards settled it in the second, sudden-death overtime period.

The Burrards lead the best-ofseven WLA final 3-1 with Game 5 scheduled for Saturday night at the Q Centre in Colwood.

Maple Ridge’s Frank Scigliano, named WLA goaltender of the year, was outstanding in facing a 57-shot Shamrocks barrage.

“We couldn’t get the ball by him,” said Shamrocks head coach Bob Heyes. “That got to us a little bit.” Maple Ridge took advantage of Scigliano’s crease heroics to jump into a 4-0 first-period lead and a 5-0 lead early in the second period, powered by four goals by Ben McIntosh.

That echoed the 3-0 firstperiod lead the Burrards took in the first period of Game 3 Tuesday at the Q Centre on a natural hat trick by McIntosh, a pro NLL champion this year with the Saskatchewan Rush and silvermedallist with Canada at the 2018 world field-lacrosse championships in Israel.

“McIntosh killed us tonight,” Heyes said.

Yet it came down to one shot in sudden-death overtime.

“We battled all night,” Heyes said.

“We outplayed them but had no ball luck. We’ve played well enough to be up 3-1, but we are not there. Our goalie has to be our best player on the floor and our best [out] players have to bring it on Saturday.”

Two-way dynamo Steve Priolo finally got Victoria on the board at 6:08 of the second period before rookie Jean-Luc Chetner restored the Burrards’ five-goal advantage at 7:26.

Five consecutive goals — another from Priolo, two from Jesse King, and singles from Chris Wardle and Rhys Duch — brought Victoria level in regulation.

Rookie Tyson Gibson out of NCAA Div. 1 Robert Morris gave the Shamrocks a 7-6 lead in the first overtime period before McIntosh tied it, setting the stage for sudden death.