Thunder strike early and often in dominant first period

Langley's Connyr Welch scores one of his three goals in an 11-4 win over the Burnaby Junior Lakers to kick off the 2025 BC Junior Tier 1 Lacrosse League season on Tuesday at Langley Events Centre. Ryan Molag photo

Nerves were not an issue for the Langley Junior Thunder.

 A relatively young squad filled primarily with first and second-year junior players, the team embarked on their BC Junior Tier 1 Lacrosse League season with a tone-setting opening 20 minutes, outscoring the visiting Burnaby Junior Lakers 8-0 to earn an 11-4 victory on Tuesday night at Langley Events Centre.

Seven different players found the back of the net with Connyr Welch finishing with a hat trick while Mason Eastgate (2-2) and Ryan Sheldrake (1-3) each had four-point efforts.

“If we are being honest with ourselves, we played 25 to 30 minutes of full lacrosse, but we want to be that team that plays a full 60,” said Langley coach Connar Abrams. Regardless, he was more than happy to earn the two points to kick off the season, especially as they face three games in a five-day stretch with stops in Richmond (April 30) and Victoria (May 3).

One of the keys to victory was the play of the team’s defensive unit which was effective in taking away time and space from the Lakers forwards, getting body parts when Burnaby did get shots off, and being first on more occasions than not in gathering rebounds.

“We have some dogs on defence and a lot of just stone-cold athletes who are willing to do whatever it takes, whether that is Kellen Bateman blocking shots from that to Marcus (Khan) being that leader in net,” he said. “We are going to do some really big things, and it is going to start with that back-end there.”

By Abrams’ estimation, Bateman had eight blocked shots while the final stat sheet showed Khan finishing with 31 saves on 35 shots.

And while most of the team has played together over the years as they progressed through the ranks of minor lacrosse, it was one of the newer members who earned Player of the Game honours.

“I thought we came out really hard in the first period, but we definitely teetered off in the next two periods,” admitted Jackson Moleski, who joined the Junior Thunder from Prince George and was happy to make an immediate impact as he tries to find his place in a new group and unfamiliar setting.

“I don’t know many of the guys, but they have been very welcoming. It is different coming from a small town to somewhere where they are playing much more high-level lacrosse.”

The rest of the Junior Thunder offence came courtesy of Brayden Longacre (2-1), Jameson Reed (1-1), Jacob Glass (1-1) and Madden Bakatsis (1-0). Burnaby was led by Daniel Battastin’s two goals.

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