The Langley Thunder making their first visit to Burnaby’s Bill Copeland Arena opened their 2017 season coming away with an 13-3 victory over the Burnaby Lakers who are now sitting 1-1 on the early season.

The Lakers were in hopes of a possible repeat from the previous week managing a 10-6 win over visiting Victoria, but try as they might, this night the Thunder proved too much to handle.

Langley jumped out to an early lead at 18:12 with McKenzie Rope getting his first of two of the night after taking a cross floor pass from McKeigan and McDole.

Mitch Dole who was 3 for 3 on the night got his first at 13:52 giving the Thunder an early 2-0 lead.

Langley started Jake Sunder between the pipes with a 27 save performance on 30 shots, while the Lakers went with Elijah  Uema-Martin better known as “Bear” who was peppered with 58 shots against allowing 13 for a SV% of .776.

Burnaby’s opening game against the Shamrocks saw them come from behind scoring six straight goals to record the win and while practice makes perfect this night at times they were simply unlucky.

The first saw the Lakers trail by a 4-2 margin after one, but narrowly outshooting the Thunder by a 14-13 tally focusing on period number two and forgetting about the first.

Both teams played entertaining lacrosse in the first nine minutes, but again the Thunder grabbed two with Chernoff and McKeigan giving them a 6-2 lead by the 10:25 mark of the mid frame.

Smith narrowed the gap with a nifty set-up from Shum at 9:59 allowing the Lakers to pull within three, but too little too late with the Thunder jumping on two additional markers prior to the end of the middle period heading to the dressing room with an 8-3 lead.

The Thunder peppered “Bear” in the second hammering 19 on him leading in the shot department through two by a 32-25 tally.

The third saw the Thunder bang off 7 straight markers with five unanswered in the third alone starting at 11:52 and the final one coming with one second remaining in the contest and holding the Lakers scoreless for 29 minutes and 59 seconds.

Langley led by period leads of 4-2 and 8-3 entering the final period scoring five times pulling away from Burnaby with Ryan Martel and Trevor Chernoff each getting a pair and a single marker by Caleb Pearson.

Langley outshot the Lakers by a 58-30 margin while Lakers “tender” Elijah Uema-Martin realistically could not be faulted for many of the goals that found the back of the net finishing with 45 saves.

The Thunder dominated in each of the periods outshooting the Lakers with a tally of 13-19-26 for a total of 58 shots hammered at “Bear”.

Try as they might the Lakers were only able to hammer a total of 30 shots on both Thunder “tenders” with a tally that saw period totals of 14-11-5, with more work needed for the finish.

The Lakers are currently 1-1 on the season with the next game(s) scheduled with a trip to the Island with games in Victoria (Saturday) and finishing the weekend in Nanaimo.

The Lakers next home game sees them play host to the defending League Champion Delta Islanders May 15th at 8 pm at Bill Copeland Arena.

In conversation with GM Jamie Scott he mentions “the boy’s will hit the floor and work on all areas and look forward to this weekend’s double header on the Island.”

Sportswave Media knows it’s an early season for the Lakers who are in the midst of getting returning players back from various schools thereby making moves to put a winning product on the floor.

Lakers Stats:

Kurtis Shum 2 Assists

Smith 1 Goal/1 Assist

Pomeroy 1 Goal/1 Assist

Elijah Uema-Martin “Bear” 58 Shots Against – SV% .776