First-quarter proves huge as Black Fish win again

Eight unanswered goals in the first quarter led the Black Fish to a fourth straight victory as they defeated the Sea Spray 15-11 in ALL West action at Langley Events Centre on Jan. 11. Gary Ahuja photo

It was as dominant a stretch from his team that coach Rod Jensen has seen all season.

Trailing by a pair just 3:22 into Saturday’s contest, Jensen’s Black Fish squad were virtually unstoppable over the next 10 minutes, scoring eight unanswered goals to defeat the Sea Spray 15-11 at Langley Events Centre.

“We were fully in sync. Probably our fullest lineup we have had: four good righties and four good lefties – puts their defence in a bit of a difficult situation,” Jensen said.

“Our timing was good: when they were cutting, when they were drawing,” he said, adding that when out of sync, the team has found themselves bottled up in the offensive zone in past games.

“We just seemed to have lots of lanes and were getting good opportunities.”

It was a fourth straight win for the Black Fish following the team’s 0-3 start to the Arena Lacrosse League West Division season.

Ethan M’Lot scored four goals for the third straight game and earned first star honours for the second consecutive week following his five-point game. He leads the Black Fish with 14 goals and is tied for the team lead with 26 points. Prior to Saturday’s game, M’Lot asked Jensen what we needed to do to earn himself some more power-play time – only two of his goals have come with the man advantage – and the coach said his answer was to score more goals.

“He answered the bell today,” Jensen said.

Brian Gillis (3-2), Rhys Porteous (2-4) and Connor Watson (2-1) also chipped in with multi-goal games while Kordell Primus (1-1), Aidan Murphy (1-1), Drew Andre and Temeke7 Gottfriedsen chipping in a goal apiece.

Brandon Humphrey delivered a 34-save performance on 42 shots before giving way to Darian Claxton for mop-up duty as the back-up finished with a pair of saves in 6:32 of action. Since-rejoining the team two games ago, Humphrey sports an .817 save percentage, which if eligible, would be tops among all ALL West goalies.

Humphrey did not like his start on Saturday after giving up a pair of early goals.

“I think I was a little off early,” he admitted.

Following the 2-0 goal, Humphrey and the Black Fish were able to keep the ball out of their net for the next 21:45.

“Having that lead, we were able to just keep the pedal down,” he said. “I didn’t have to do too much, just play my game.”

The Sea Spray’s Thomas Semple and James Rahe each had four goals and seven points with Trevayne Hunter (1-3), Kai George (1-1) and Seamus Bankier (1-1) adding the other offence.

Both goalies saw action for the Sea Spray as Lee Jackman made 11 saves on 18 shots and Marc Rippberger stopping 35 of 43 shots.

UP NEXT: Week 8 of the ALL West returns to Langley Events Centre on January 18 with the Grizzlies (1-6) facing the Sea Spray (2-5) at 1:00pm before the Black Fish (4-3) and Shooting Eagles (7-0) put their win streaks on the line at 4:00pm.

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