The Niagara Lock Monsters opened their inaugural Canadian Lacrosse League (CLax) season with a convincing 22-13 victory over the Iroquois Ironmen at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena Sunday afternoon.
Rochester Knighthawks practice player Tom Montour opened the scoring for the Ironmen with an unassisted powerplay marker just under two minutes into the game. The Lock Monster’s Ryan Learn answered with a pair of goals to but Niagara up 2-1.
After Lloyd Chrysler knotted the game up at two, 11 seconds later rookie Jordan Daradick scored his first CLax goal to give Niagara the lead.
2010 Canadian University Lacrosse Association scoring champion Corey Fowler and St.Catharines native Brad Favero found the back of the cage to extend the lead to three for the Lock Monsters.
Blue Hill registered the second powerplay goal for the Ironmen with assists from Montour and 2012 CLax scoring champion Chris Attwood. Favero closed out the period with his second goal of the game to give Niagara a 6-3 lead.
The two squads exchanged goals with just under six minutes to put Niagara up by four. The Ironmen poured on three goals including two from Chris Attwood to close the gap to 9-8 in favour of the Lock Monsters.
The Lock Monsters opened the second half with goals from Learn, Andrew Tober and Jon Arnold to regain the four-goal lead for Niagara.
The Ironmen were not ready to go down just yet as Josh Johnson and Chancey Johnson each added a goal to cut the Niagara lead to two with just over five minutes remaining in the third frame.
The fourth quarter was all Niagara as they outscored Iroquois 8-2, including 5 goals to open the final frame.
Leading the impressive attack for the Lock Monsters was Fowler who found the back of the cage four times while adding seven assists. Nine year NLL veteran Kim Squire also registered a hat-trick and five assists for eight points in the Niagara victory.
Chris Attwood led the Ironmen offensively with four goals and three assists bringing his season total to 15 points in two games.
While the Lock Monsters offense was high powered, their back end was solid in the victory.
Lock Monsters netminder Grant Crawley shut the door on 44 of 57 Ironmen shots.
“The goaltending was phenomenal”, said rookie defender Bryan Campbell. “Grant was there when we really needed him and he came through with a big one. Obviously at some points we left him stranded with breakaways but overall he was solid and definitely earned his spot as the starter.”
Crawley earned some help as the Niagara defense was solid in their CLax debut.
“We communicated quite well with each other which is huge for any team’s defensive success”, said Campbell. “We as well have some top gun shut down defenders which will make it difficult for any team in this league to beat. We are still getting used to our defensive package but I’m confident we will perfect it by next game.”
The woes continue for the Ironmen as they drop to 0-2 and have allowed a league worst 40 goals against in two games. Offensive production has not been an issue for Iroquois as they have posted 28 goals in the two losses. Defense and goaltending problems need to be addressed as soon as possible for the 2012 Creator’s Cup finalists to reestablish themselves as one of CLax’s elite teams.
