Saturday's Victoria Junior Shamrocks home-opener was an emotional rollercoaster not only for fans, but the players and coaches themselves.
The Jr. Shamrocks were forced to settle for a 9-9 tie against the defending B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League champion Coquitlam Adanacs at The Q Centre.
Thomas Moffat's听goal with just one second remaining in the extra session stole a point away from the host 'Rocks, who had battled back from an 8-4 deficit early in the third period.
Nate Wade's third goal of the game,听with 27.5 seconds to go in the full 10-minute overtime, appeared to give the Shamrocks the win.
But a series of critical errors allowed the visitors to make a quick transitional outlet pass from deep in its own corner to allow Moffat to tie it, beating goaltender Charles Claxton, who had stoned Josh Kemp and Jordan Gilles in the last two minutes of OT.
An ill-advised shot at an open net from deep in Victoria territory, followed by two Shamrocks defenders chasing the loose ball into the Coquitlam zone triggered the tying goal.
It took away from a spectacular effort as the Shamrocks scored four straight goals in the third period, after allowing five straight in the second in a back and forth game that toyed with the emotions of all involved.
"We came out hard in the third period. Too bad about the overtime - that kind of sucked," admitted Wade. "We thought we had it, but we're a young team this year so we're building to be better by the end of the season.
"The coaches weren't too happy about that (chasing down the loose ball), but they were happy with our effort. If we would have had a better second period, I think we would have beaten them.
"They won the league last year and it's nice to know we can compete with them," added Wade, who was solid as the Shamrocks are now 1-0-1 to start the season. Coquitlam improves to 2-0-1.
It's easy to see why Wade is wearing an A as an assistant captain.
"He's a force," Jr. Shamrocks head coach Nirmal Dillon said of Wade. "You never know where to put him because he's so good offensively and defensively. I wish I could clone him."
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