The Maple Ridge Burrards beat the Coquitlam Adanacs 10-5 on Tuesday night in a home game at Planet Ice.
“It was one of our better games offensively,” said coach Chris Gill.
The game underlined how dangerous the Burrards can be on the power play, and perhaps showed how many wins they gave away by being on the wrong side of the referees. They are the most penalized team in the league by a healthy margin. But Ridge’s power play went four-for-five on the night, and kept them in the game in the first period, which ended tied at 3-3.
The Burrards took the game over in the second period, with five straight unanswered goals.
Big Ben McIntosh led the offence with three goals and six points, while Jarrett Davis was right behind him with two goals and three assists for five points.
“Benny stepped up, and so did Murphy,” said Gill, and noted that the team has a number of players who could fill the role of sniper on any given night.
Andrew Murphy and Mike Mallory each had two goals and an assist, and the other scorer was Riley Loewen, who had three points as well.
Loewen is the team’s leading scorer, in the top ten in the Western Lacrosse Association, with 39 points in nine games.
Frankie Scigliano made 33 saves on 38 shots. After eight games the rookie first-round pick has arguably been the best goaltender in the league, at least statistically. He remains atop the league in both goals against average at 6.96 per game, and save percentage at 0.835. Close behind in both categories is Victoria’s Matt Flindell, a veteran of five seasons who plays for the league’s top team, with 7.32 goals against on average, and a save percentage of 0.822.
It was the first of back-to-back-to-back games against the Adanacs, and gives the Burrards second place in the Western Lacrosse Association with a record of 7-5-1.
“We’re not ecstatic with where we are,” said Gill. “We figure we’ve given a few games away, where the other team didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves.”
The Burrards will again play their next home game on Tuesday night at Planet Ice, at 7:45 p.m. against the Adanacs.