THE CANADIAN PRESS
EDMONTON — Derek Malawsky led the way with three goals including the game-winner as the Portland LumberJax won the battle of the basement between the National Lacrosse League’s only winless teams, defeating the Edmonton Rush 11-10 on Saturday night.
The LumberJax improved to 1-3 while the Rush remained winless at 0-4.
Dan Dawson chipped in two of the Portand goals while singles were recorded by Cory Conway, Tyler Condron, Matt Holman, Brodie Merrill, Adam Bysouth and Scott Stapleford.
LumberJax head coach and G.M. Derek Keenan says it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off the team’s collective shoulders.
"It really does," said Keenan. "Three of our four games we played quite well. But even in this one there were times that I was thinking here we go again. We must have put 10 goal posts and couldn’t seem to put them away. But we persevered and got a big win. We’re off the slide now and I’ve got a good feeling about this team from here forward."
Dawson says the fuzzy feeling from finally finding the win column extends back to last season as well.
"This dates back to last year, the big slide that we’ve been on," he said. "Once you get that taste in your mouth you realize what it feels like to win again and we hadn’t had that feeling yet this year. It was a huge win and hopefully it snowballs from here."
Jimmy Quinlan and Mike Accursi each recorded hat tricks in a losing effort for the Rush with additional goals coming from Kyle Goundry, Dan Stroup, AJ Shannon and Darren Hillier.
Falling to 0-4 in a one-goal game didn’t sit well with the Rush players.
"That one kind of hurts because we were right there," Quinlan said. "But you take that first quarter out of the equation and we dominated that game. We just didn’t come out ready to play. But I feel there were a lots of positives we can take out of this game as well."
Rush head coach and G.M. Paul Day agreed that the 15 minute brain cramp to start the contest was the difference.
"We won three quarters, they won one," he said. "At the end of the day we can’t give up a shift, let alone a full quarter like that. But we battled back unbelievably there, and that’s something we hadn’t seen to this point."
Portland jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and kept the pedal down for the entire first quarter, going ahead 5-1 after the first quarter on a late breakaway goal by Merrill. Edmonton goalie Curtis Palidwor was peppered with 16 first quarter shots while Jax starter Matt King only faced three Edmonton shots through the initial 15 minutes.
Quinlan scored his second of the contest to start the second, but Portland responded quickly as transition player Adam Bysouth scored on a seemingly harmless shot from 80 feet out. Matt Disher came in to replace Palidwor in the Edmonton net.
Swapping out goalies seemed to wake the Rush up and they would go on to score three unanswered goals to make for a 6-5 score at the half, closing the shot deficit to 24-17.
Edmonton kept up the pressure to start the third with two more quick goals to take their first lead of the game, 7-6. Portland quickly restored their one-goal advantage with a pair of power play goals just 22 seconds apart.
The third period ended tied 9-9 setting up a desperate fourth.
Edmonton went ahead 10-9 with eight minutes to go on a bullet shot by Accursi, his third of the match. But the game was knotted again when Portland star forward Dawson came through in the clutch with a goal on a low bouncer with four minutes to go.
The LumberJax went ahead 11-10 with 2:23 remaining when Malawsky banked in his third of the contest and the Portland defence came up big in the late running to preserve the win.
The LumberJax stay on the road with a match in Colorado on Thursday and then head to Minnesota next Sunday. The two teams will face each other in a rematch for Edmonton’s next game on Sunday, Feb. 17, in Portland.
Notes: Edmonton lost its first three outings to Colorado, Toronto and Chicago. Portland fell to New York, Colorado and Calgary in its first three games While the Portland offence has struggled to start the ’08 campaign, averaging a league-worst 9.3 goals per game through their first three, the power play unit had actually been a high point, successful on a league-best 65% of their opportunities Newly acquired free agent defenceman Troy Bonterre made his debut for the Rush. Over the last two seasons spent in Buffalo, the six-foot-three, 250-pounder has earned a reputation as one of the league’s premier enforcers, with 192 penalty minutes to go with no goals and seven assists in 44 career regular season games The Rush and LumberJax joined the NLL as expansion cousins for the 2006 season.