The Victoria Shamrocks and Coquitlam Adanacs met Saturday night at the Coquitlam Sports Centre for the second of three meetings this season. Victoria came away with a win in Week 1, and were looking to seize control of first place in the WLA after handing Maple Ridge their first loss of the season the night before. Meanwhile, the Adanacs have had an uneven start to the season, and were looking to keep pace behind the Shamrocks and Burrards in the standings. However, big nights from Marshal King and Zach Manns gave Victoria an 11-8 win and an early head-to-head tiebreaker over a team that is widely expected to challenge for the right to represent British Columbia at the Mann Cup.
Victoria erases early deficit with eight-goal run
The Adanacs took an early 2-0 lead when Kean Moon (0:58) and James Rahe (1:35) scored 37 seconds apart. Victoria responded with eight unanswered goals into the second period. Marshal King scored back-to-back (8:23; 10:58) to tie the game. Then Luke Pilcher scored a power play goal (15:03) and Zach Manns followed (15:34) to give the Shamrocks a 4-2 lead after one period.
Koen Block opened the second period with another power play goal (1:24), and Denton Macdonald (3:15) made it 6-2 Victoria. King (3:37) and Pilcher (3:53) scored again to extend the lead to 8-2. Laszlo Henning broke the run at 7:25, and goals from Moon (7:48) and Rahe (13:35) pulled the Adanacs back within three, 8-5 going into the third period.
Victoria holds off late charge from Coquitlam to stay atop standings
Block opened the third period with his second goal (1:40) for a 9-5 Shamrocks lead. Henning’s second (8:19) briefly cut the lead to three again, but King netted his fourth (8:41) to make it 10-6. The Adanacs made a late comeback, with goals from Jalen Chaster (17:39 extra attacker) and Moon (18:25 power play) narrowing the margin to 10-8. But Manns would score his second (19:02) to close out the win for Victoria, who improve to 6-1 and remain in first place.
Coquitlam dropped to 4-3 with the loss. The Shamrocks outshot the Adanacs 54-39. King (4g, 2a) was named 1st Star of the Game, and Manns (2g, 5a) was named 2nd Star. Moon (3g) took 3rd Star honors for Coquitlam. Chris Origlieri made 31 saves for Victoria, while Christian Del Bianco stopped 43 shots in the loss for the Adanacs, who beat Nanaimo the following night and do not play in Week 5. Victoria has two games in Week 5, playing at New Westminster Thursday and at Maple Ridge on Sunday.
