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The Victoria Shamrocks rolled into New West on Friday night with one win under their belts, but the New Westminster Salmonbellies didn’t intend to make the first home play-off game in two years a disappointment for their loyal fans.

Similar to Wednesday night’s game, the ‘Bellies charged in and got on the scoreboard first. New West regular season leading scorer Jordan McBride took matters into his own hands and scored two goals to start. After Rhys Duch cracked the Shamrocks’ goose egg, the period opened up into some great end-to-end action and alternating scoring. Keegan Bal and junior call-ups Nathan Stewart and Josh Byrne added goals for the Salmonbellies while Victoria answered with scoring from Dhane Smith, Scott Ranger and rookie Chris Wardle who closed out first period scoring to bring the visitors within one after the first period. Twenty minutes in, the ‘Bellies were up 5-4 while being outshot 17-16.

The second period scoring got started just eleven seconds in with Mitch McLaren scoring his first of the play-offs and tying up the score. The teams took turns scoring for the duration of the middle frame and went into the locker room locked at eight goals a piece after forty minutes. The Shamrocks counted two from Corey Small and one from Karsen Leung. Logan Schuss kept the ‘Bellies scoring and Byrne completed his hat trick with two goals. Like the score, the shots were deadlocked at 19 with one period to play.

The ‘Bellies came out strong in the third period, eager and ready to score. Three consecutive goals from Schuss, Byrne and Colton Clark gave them a secure lead and the Shamrocks only scored once before Schuss secured his own hat trick on the ‘Bellies last goal. Matt Yager was the only Victoria player to break into the ‘Bellies’ scoring streak.

With a 12-9 lead and the clock ticking down, the ‘Bellies were on the edge of a win that could silence many naysayers around the league. For their part, the Shamrocks did what any desperate team would do: they pulled their goaltender for an extra attacker. Small was able to convert on the play and brought the score to 12-10 before the Shamrocks were able to do the same two more times, once from Wardle and another from Small. With three seconds left in the game, Dhane Smith put the nail in the coffin to take home a game two win for the ‘Rocks and a 2-0 series lead.

Alexis Buque got the start for the Salmonbellies and made 46 saves on 59 shots. At the other end of the floor, two goalies split duties with Matt Flindell making 26 saves on 37 shots and Cody Hagedorn saving 9 out of the 10 shots he faced.

Despite the loss, fans their money’s worth with this exciting, high scoring, back and forth game and the Salmonbellies proved that they can keep up with the regular season champs.

This series resumes on Sunday night at 6pm when they meet for the third game of the series, their second game at the Q Centre in Victoria.

WLA Three Stars:

Dhane Smith
Corey Small
Josh Byrne

Gamesheet: http://bit.ly/1rb3Gux